


Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover

by loveinadoorway



Category: Firefly, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-29
Updated: 2009-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-21 21:41:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

  
**Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover - 1/5**

**  
  
**

****Disclaimer:**  
**  
As usual, don’t I wish I’d own them… Borrowed with love and respect from Joss Whedon (JW is my master now) and the Kripteam.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Genre:** slash  
 **Spoilers:** S5  
 **Word Count:** ~20.534  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Cas, Sam, Bobby, Mal, Wash/Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne  
 **Warnings:** language, booze, man on man action  
 **Thanks:** [](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/profile)[**jayfray18**](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/) for teeth and zippers and some awesome beta-ing, wingfrog for the amazing artwork, [](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/profile)[**rogue_pixie88**](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/) for cheerleading and [](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/profile)[**jacen_c_solo**](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/) for not giving up on me right from the start for molesting Firefly.  
 **Summary:** The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.  
For the sake of me being incapable of handling so many characters AND do them all justice, this is set before the Firefly series. In the SPN ‘verse, any odd time in the future of the current spot of S5 will do.  
Check <http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/ChinesePhrases> and <http://web.missouri.edu/~heivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf> for translations to the Chinese phraselets.

  
**  
Chapter One – Of wormholes and whisky  
**

“Ai ya!”

Malcolm Reynolds ran down the narrow corridor towards the cockpit. Serenity was bucking and lurching and he was slammed into the wall with about every second step he took.

He reached the cockpit and another lurch all but tossed him inside. Wash was hanging on to the controls as best he could and turned a white, tight face towards his captain: "Ai ya, wo mun wan leh!"

Yes, no shit, Mal could see they were indeed in deep trouble.  
A strange phenomenon loomed ahead and Serenity was hurtling towards the center of it. Purple swirly things in outer space seldom tended to be bringers of joy and Mal was sure this wasn’t going to be the exception to the rule. There were waves of energy rippling through the formation and the center of it was pitch black.

“Wash, what the hell is that thing?”

“Don’t know, Mal, never seen anything like it,” Wash ground out, while he fought to steer Serenity away from the phenomenon. To no avail. The Firefly-class ship was tearing towards the swirls as if drawn by a magnet.

Mal grabbed the comms mike and yelled: “We’re approaching an unknown phenomenon, don’t seem to have a choice but go right through it. Everyone buckle up and sit tight.” Serenity bucked again like a mad bronco whose balls had been tied together far too tight and Mal was flung from his seat.

“Ta ma duh!” yelled the Captain as his crotch collided with the flight controls in a very non-erotic and decidedly painful manner on his way down to the floor.

Then they reached the swirly cloud.

That very second, Serenity’s engines stopped. Not only that, but all lights went out and the life support system ground to a halt. There was an eerie silence for a few seconds, then a shattering impact, screeching, grinding, metal on rock, objects hitting the hull, then complete and utter silence again.  
Mal gingerly picked himself up from the floor.

“Status?” he snapped atWash.

“Crashed, I guess,” the pilot grinned.

“This is not the time for lame ass jokes, Wash, tzao-goa!”

There was no mistaking the look in the captain’s eyes. There were times when Mal appreciated Wash’s sense of humor and then there were times like this.

“Well, apparently we’ve crashed on a planet with breathable atmosphere and… I don’t know. Engine’s still out, but life support and lights just came back on. Looks like we might be… kinda… safe?”

“Okay. Okay.” Mal grabbed comms again and said: “We’ve crashed on an unknown planet. Everybody get armed and meet me at the hatch. Kaylee, engine status NOW.”

“Engine is down, cause unknown,” came the prompt, if not reassuring reply. “But if you want an uneducated guess, it looks like it’s the dumbass compression coil again.”

They met at the hatch.  
Jayne had decided the situation called for overkill and was toting two large guns and the biggest knives he could possibly find. He made his brawly face and was fondling one of the huge ass guns far to lovingly for comfort. Kaylee had also grabbed a gun and a large wrench and clearly wasn’t looking forward to a fight. Wash tried to cop a feel from Zoe, who didn’t think this was the right moment for dilly-dally. He was arguing with her at the same time on whether or not the situation required him to carry a gun. Zoe argued against it, on account of Wash being the worst shot in the known universe.

In other words, all was normal on Serenity, except that they didn’t know where the hell they were or what had happened to them. Which also wasn’t entirely unheard of before. But they had guns, they had guts and they had determination and so if they wouldn’t be able to wing it, they’d at least be able to fake winging it reasonably well.

Mal nodded at his crew. “Okay, let’s do this.”

Dean and Sam were sitting in Bobby’s living room, researching the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They had met War, Lucifer had raised Death, but where the hell could the others be; what was their goal and how could they be stopped? There must be some nefarious purpose they served and no way did Sam believe for a second that they had met War by chance or that the Horseman had simply gone on holiday after they had bested him.

Truth be told, it was Sam who was actually doing the research and Dean was intently investigating 101 new ways of tossing balled-up paper into Bobby’s wastepaper basket from various impossible angles.  
In short, Dean was bored.

All they had done recently was go on hunts as if nothing as mind-boggling as an Apocalypse was going on. Stupid, regular hunts for stupid, regular monsters. Well, as far as monsters went, that is.

It didn’t make sense. Nothing big really happened – and the fucking Apocalypse should by right of law be as big as they come, shouldn’t it? But in the last couple of weeks, not a peep from Lucy, no big demon activity, nothing. Just small fry. Maybe a bit more small fry than usual, but still…

Castiel only dropped by once in a blue moon and Bobby kept sending them out on these hunts, while he stayed behind to do some obscure research of his own. That was annoying as shit, not knowing where the angel was for around ninety five percent of the time, and it pissed Dean off mightily.

Dean worried about Bobby. Sitting in a wheelchair was not doing the man any good. He simply wasn’t the kind of man whose very reason for existing you could take away and who still would be cheerful about it and take up an interesting new hobby like origami to make up for the loss.  
But Dean being Dean and Bobby being Bobby, there just wasn’t ever going to be a heart to heart between them.

Suddenly, there was a deafening crash outside. To all intents and purposes, it sounded as if a jumbo jet had crashed in Bobby’s yard. The metal screeching and loud banging noises went on for a bit, then stopped.  
Dean had jumped to his feet at the first crash and now grabbed his gun, stuffed it in the back of his jeans and headed out. Sam followed close behind.

Nothing they had ever seen could have prepared them for the sight of a fucking spaceship, a real honest-to-God spaceship with its nose buried deep in theSouth Dakota soil.  
As they stood there gaping, the hatch slowly opened and a fierce-looking band of people emerged, armed to the gills.

They looked human enough, but then again, what did that prove in the end?  
Dean looked them over until his eyes zoomed in on the leader. Tallish guy, brown pants, dark red shirt, suspenders, determined look in his eyes. But there was also something… _reassuring_ about the man, even though Dean couldn’t quite put his finger on the cause for this feeling.

“Uh… hi! You... uh… guys need any help or something?”

Very glib, very suave. Not. But Dean saw surprise on the people’s faces, surprise and recognition? Did they at least understand English?

“Which planet is this?” asked the guy in the suspenders.

“Earth.”

Now there was shock on the man’s face. He frowned, then said: “What year, then?”

“2009.”

More shock. Could only mean one thing.

“So… uh… you guys from the future?”

“Looks like it.” The guy in brown seemed decidedly puzzled, while his crew – with the exception of the black woman and the red-haired girl – looked almost scared.

“We’re not going to harm you, you know. Not unless, well, you…” Sam said, clearly just as thrown by the whole setup as Dean.

“What the fuck is going on here?” came Bobby’s voice from behind them.

“Wouldn’t we all like to know,” said the tough-looking black woman.

“I’m sure me and the boys got a good enough idea about what’s brought you here, let’s see what we do with you. Well, don’t just all stand there, come on inside, it’s fucking freezing out here,” said Bobby gruffly, turned his wheelchair and wheeled towards the house.

The Serenity crew walked into Bobby’s living room and looked around curiously.

Bobby brought two bottles of whisky - the ones with the holy water in ‘cause Bobby Singer was nobody’s fool - back, motioned towards the cupboard and said: “Glasses are in there, help yourselves. You look like you could do with a stiff one.”

Bobby always bought his whisky cask strength, so a shot of holy water wasn’t going to make it taste watered-down. He put the bottles on the table and nodded at the newcomers.

“Much appreciated,” said Mal, eyeing the markings on the ceiling.

“That’s a devil’s trap. It’s used to catch demons,” Sam said nervously.

“Demons?” Zoe smiled derisively.

Okay, how to break it to them gently? Dean had no idea. Best just come right out and say it, so Dean stared Mal hard in the eye and said: “The Apocalypse has started. Lucifer has risen. And I am not a religious nut or anything. It’s actually happening. And it doesn’t take a genius to guess it probably is what brought you here, too.”

Suddenly, there was the rustle of wings and Dean said in a tired voice: “Hi Cas.”

The angel of Thursday did not reply, but walked past Dean towards Mal.

“This is most unusual,” the angel said in his gravelly voice, head tilted slightly sideways.

“No shit, Sherlock,” growled Dean. “They’re from the future, Cas. What the heck are they doing here?”

“I can only assume they were brought here for a reason.” Castiel gave an infinitesimal little shrug.

“By whom, Cas? The guys with the white hats, or the guys with the black hats?” asked Dean warily.

“Well, they landed here, so it stands to reason they are here to help us, rather than oppose us,” said Castiel with, or so Dean thought, a distinct lack of conviction.

Malcolm Reynolds was not a believer, not by any stretch of the imagination.  
Yet a man in a suit and a trench coat had just materialized in a corner of this shabby room. Like that.

“Zao ni ma. Who the hell are you?”

“I have no mother for you to fornicate with and my name is Castiel.” Crap, the guy spoke Chinese. The man pulled himself up a little straighter and continued: “I am an angel of the Lord.”

“Rrrrrright,” said Wash, nodding emphatically and grinning all around, clearly trying not to enrage the obviously mental natives.

Well, thought Mal, they would be obviously mental, if it weren’t for the fact that that dude with the ludicrous tie had just materialized out of nowhere. And there had been a fluttering noise when he did, fluttering like wings. _Big wings_.

“Okay, why don’t we take it from the beginning, guys,” said the green-eyed one with the crew cut who walked up to Mal. “I’m Dean Winchester, this here’s my brother Sam, Bobby Singer and you already know that this is Cas, the fucking angel of Thursday.”

He held out his hand and Mal shook it and said: “I’m Captain Malcolm Reynolds.” He then pointed to the members of his crew. “This is Wash, Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne. My ship’s the Serenity.”

Nobody was grabbing any glasses with the mood a bit on the tense side, so Bobby took them from the cupboard at this point, poured the whisky and then said levelly: “There are more chairs back in the other room. Go grab some, getting this story sorted might take awhile, best not be standing through it all.”

When they were all settled and had had at least one drink each, Bobby – who had been surreptitiously watching the Serenity crew for any untoward reaction to the whisky - started to tell the newcomers about hunters, demons, angels, seals and the Apocalypse.

**  
Chapter Two – Compression coils are what you use to shift angels into D  
**

“The way I see it, if we don’t stop the Apocalypse, your world might very well not come to pass,” Bobby said darkly as he finished his story. He took a sip of whisky and then watched the amber liquid swirl around in the tumbler.

Malcolm looked thoughtful, but remained silent.

“How do we get back home in the first place, is what worries me the most,” said Wash glumly. “I mean, what are the chances of such a guo cao de wormhole appearing again and sending us back to the exact same year and place?”

“Slim to nil, unless we stop the Apocalypse. If we do, I think your chances would not be too bad,” said Castiel quietly. “If Heaven wins, I might be able to arrange for something.”

Mal looked sharply at Castiel, as if he had just remembered that the man in the unassuming suit claimed to be an angel of the Lord.

“And how would you do that, exactly?” asked Jayne, gruffly incredulous in the face of so much supernatural chou ma niao. What a pile of supercharged bullshit.

“I can’t say now, as so much depends on what might happen in the near future,” Cas replied stiffly. “My own future is tied directly to the success or failure of our attempt to stop the Apocalypse and kill or at least banish Lucifer.”

The captain looked him in the eye and then merely nodded. Malcolm Reynolds seemed like a reasonable man. A man to be reckoned with. A man who could help them.

Castiel looked around himself. Dean wasn’t there anymore. At one point or another, he had obviously left the room. So had the red-headed mechanic.  
Someone handed the angel a glass with a generous dose of amber liquid, which Castiel accepted absentmindedly.  
Dean was gone. The mechanic was gone. Castiel frowned.  
Surely, not even Dean could be this fast in persuading a female to…

Dean had to leave the room.  
He just couldn’t listen to the dire tale of their conjoined misfortune and failure yet another time. He had grabbed a beer and just kept walking until he reached the spaceship.  
 _The spaceship._ Dean snorted a laugh. Just when he thought he’d seen it all…  
The ship was brightly lit and the mechanic – Kaylee? – was hard at work on what looked like part of the engine.

“Problems?” Dean asked.

“Damned compression coil popped out of its hinges. We’re so many kinds of goddamned lucky it didn’t get damaged in the process.”

The girl struggled with a big wrench and was obviously berating the Gods of mechatronics for giving her just two hands when it was so blindingly obvious that at least three were needed. Dean quickly put his beer on a crate and grabbed a second wrench.  
Kaylee grinned and motioned to the side of the coil thingy. He caught on immediately and placed the wrench on the spot indicated and held tight, while Kaylee turned hers.

They worked in companionable silence for a long time. Kaylee grinned at Dean every now and again and he grinned back. For the first time in months, his heart felt light. He was doing something with his hands, something where he would have a sense of accomplishment when he was finished. He was doing something with someone who wasn’t an angel of the Lord, borderline suicidal or addicted to demon blood. Someone normal, who grinned at him in such a free and easy way that he just had to grin back, whether he had a reason or not.  
He hadn’t had this much fun since even before he had made the goddamned deal with the crossroads demon.

Castiel silently crept towards the spaceship.  
He could hear Dean and the girl laughing.  
It made him feel… He found that he did not like the girl.  
She had stupid hair and a silly smile and what kind of a stupid name was Kaylee, anyway? That was a most uncharitable thought for an angel of the Lord, yet Castiel could not quite stop himself.  
He had to steady himself against a car wreck. Something wasn’t quite right.  
The stupid girl was chattering away and Dean was grinning like a jackass and as she obviously reached the end of her silly story, even started to laugh uproariously.

Strange, thought Cas, how he never really noticed before how adorably the corners of Dean’s eyes crinkled up when he laughed. He absentmindedly noticed a strange burning sensation in the pit of his stomach. He should make Dean laugh. He didn’t know how, but he should. He definitely should.  
Kaylee took a deep breath and seemed about to embark on another pointless story. Cas drew himself up to his full height and stepped into the circle of light. Enough was enough.

"Bai-tuo, An-jing-eedyen!" Cas barked, as these people obviously freely mixed Chinese and English when they spoke and Chinese was such a superb language of being subtly insulting on multiple layers.  
He appeared to have slight balance issues. Curious.

“Wow, what crawled up your arse and died, mister?”

Kaylee glowered at Cas. Cas glowered back. It gave him a curious sense of satisfaction, so he kept at it and did not budge.

“What the hell did you just say to her, Cas?” Dean looked angrily at the angel.

Castiel looked at Dean, a defiant lift to his chin.  
This was all most irregular.  
Dean should be inside Bobby’s house, making plans with the men, not out here, repairing a spaceship with this girl. He had no reason to be here, Dean didn’t even know how to repair a spaceship. He hadn’t even seen a spaceship before this one crashed here.  
And the stupid girl… he should not be with the stupid girl. No. Definitely not.

“I said to Katie that she should… shut her cakehole now. Is that the right expression?” Cas asked in his most gravelly voice.

“My name is Kaylee. Kaywinnit Lee Frye. KAYLEE,” snapped the girl. “Cakehole is most certainly not the right expression and I will shut up if and when I want to shut up and not a moment before. Especially not if a decidedly unimpressive guy in a ludicrous suit, ugly tie and stupid coat tells me to.”

Dean was laughing silently. He couldn’t help himself, the whole situation was just too silly. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think Cas was jealous. Whatever the hell possessed the guy? Jesus, was his angel dude ever off his game tonight.

“I’ll have you know that this, as you put it, unimpressive guy is an angel of the Lord. I could smite you here and now,” Cas said grandly, making big, sweeping motions with his hands.

The grandezza of the declaration was slightly ruined by the Mighty Smiting Power Angel tripping over a length of steel pipe.  
He tumbled against Dean and grabbed hold of the human’s biceps to steady himself. He stilled, lost in the sensation of tight muscle under his fingers and the warmth that emanated from Dean’s body.  
He pulled back very sharply, which did something unpleasant to his brain. It kind of lurched. Brains did not lurch.

Dean was still chuckling when he walked back towards the house with Cas.  
What a scene!  
He had waved at Kaylee and winked, then pulled Castiel away by the scruff of the neck. Which in itself was a hoot and a half, pulling an angel around by …. He suddenly laughed out loud.

“What is it that you fin’ so amusing?” Cas asked in a snarky kind of voice. He blinked repeatedly and frowned.

“You!” Dean howled with laughter. “Cas, c’mon man, have you been drinking or something? You’re acting mighty weird!”

“Two whiskies. But that’s neither here nor zhhh… there,” said Cas. “Alcohol doesnnnnnut affect me.”

“Cas, buddy, sorry to bust your bubble there, but you are officially tipsy. Have you ever had booze before?”

“No.” Cas shook his head a little bit too emphatically.

“Okay, cool idea, then, to start with hard liquor. And two whiskies, no less.”

“Mmmaybe zhhhh.. three.” Cas said and shook his head again. “You went off with the girl,” the angel said mournfully. “Pretty girl comes along and you juss’ go off and don’t think ‘bout me annnnymore.”

“Cas, hang on there, what the hell are you saying?” Dean said, a little weirded out now.

Cas couldn’t possibly really be… jealous of Kaylee. No way. He was a dude, man. Okay, well, technically, Cas was whatever angels were, merely his vessel was male. And let’s not forget that his vessel was also very married. Still…. Gender aside, Cas was an angel and angels didn’t, did they? They sure as hell didn’t, did they? Dean blinked repeatedly.

“So I had some whisky. You do that when you’re sad’n all. You said it helps. S’what you said, Dean, isn’t it? So I had ‘nuther. Maybe four.” Cas hiccupped softly.

“Four. You had four whiskies? How the hell could Bobby let you have four whiskies? You’re fucking wasted, dude!”

Dean was shocked and angry. He’d be having one helluva serious talk with one Robert Singer in a bit. The angel had no idea what he was doing, but Bobby should know the hell better.

“He was busy talkin’ to zhh… the soldier.” Castiel cast another mournful look at Dean. “Nobody pays me any attention. Nobody,” he mumbled. “Whisky is nice. Makes me all warmmm ‘nside. And the fifth didn’t even burnnn nannymore.”

Five whiskies, goodness gracious. Dean ran his hand through his hair, at a loss about what to say.  
Then Cas giggled a bit and put his finger on Dean’s nose, rubbing up and down lightly. Dean felt an unexpected emotional tug and held still, a little confused, a little scared and more than a little interested.

“Your freckles are so cute,” the angel giggled, then ran his whole hand reverently through Dean’s hair, relishing in the way it felt against his hand.  
“I like you, you know. I knnnnow I’m not s’posed to, but I do,” he whispered very seriously before keeling over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.

_  
**Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover - 1/5**   
_   


**  
  
**  
  
  
**   
  
**

**  
**Disclaimer:**   
**   
As usual, don’t I wish I’d own them… Borrowed with love and respect from Joss Whedon (JW is my master now) and the Kripteam.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Genre:** slash  
 **Spoilers:** S5  
 **Word Count:** ~20.534  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Cas, Sam, Bobby, Mal, Wash/Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne  
 **Warnings:** language, booze, man on man action  
 **Thanks:** [](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/profile)[**jayfray18**](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/) for teeth and zippers and some awesome beta-ing, wingfrog for the amazing artwork, [](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/profile)[**rogue_pixie88**](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/) for cheerleading and [](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/profile)[**jacen_c_solo**](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/) for not giving up on me right from the start for molesting Firefly.  
 **Summary:** The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.  
For the sake of me being incapable of handling so many characters AND do them all justice, this is set before the Firefly series. In the SPN ‘verse, any odd time in the future of the current spot of S5 will do.  
Check <http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/ChinesePhrases>and <http://web.missouri.edu/~heivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf> for translations to the Chinese phraselets.

 **Chapter Three – Hangovers aren’t the devil, the devil is the devil**

Hauling a blind drunk, passed out angel of the Lord around a junkyard was not very high on Dean Winchester’s list of ‘200 fun things to do on a night out’.   
Neither was praying, yet here he was, fervently praying that Cas wouldn’t barf down his back while he laboriously walked towards the house with the angel slung over his shoulder. Tough going, as Castiel turned out to be a lot heavier than he looked.  
He walked into the house. A few steps in, he met Sam coming out of the kitchen.  
“Dean!” came a shocked query.  
“Not now, Sammy,” he ground out between gritted teeth.  
A few steps further in, he met Bobby, in his wheelchair in the door leading to the living room.  
“Dean, what the fuck….”  
“Definitely not now, Bobby,” snarled Dean.  
He carried the angel up the narrow, steep staircase, his thigh muscles on fire and his back complaining loudly. He obviously wasn’t getting any younger.   
Not that he ever hauled an angel around before.  
Just when he was sure he would drop dead any second, he reached his room and dumped Cas unceremoniously on the narrow bed. He draped a quilt over the softly snoring angel and after some consideration placed a bucket next to the bed. You never knew.  
He stormed from the room and down the stairs.

Mal sat in a rather dilapidated armchair and stared pensively into his whisky. He had a lot to process. If these men were not completely insane, then their situation was even more dire than he had thought. Not only were they lost in the past, on a planet that had all but ceased to exist in their own time. It also seemed that his crew and he had a part to play in this Apocalypse. And that could quite simply not be good.  
He sighed and rubbed his weary eyes. He had to keep them safe and bring them home. That was his responsibility. It had always been his responsibility, even back in Serenity Valley. He should have brought his men home. More of them, anyway – he was a realist at the end of the day. That had been a kind of hell in its own right. He would hate to see what the real deal looked like.  
So. Demons, angels, the devil and much more besides.  
Dean burst into the room, looking extremely angry.  
“Where’s Bobby?” he growled.  
“Went to … I think they called it Seven Eleven?... with your brother just now,” Mal replied.  
“Damn fools got the angel drunk. What the fuck were they thinking?”  
“Guess they were concentrating on getting me and my team up to speed and didn’t pay much attention to your angel.”  
Dean came close to snapping that Cas was not his angel, but something held him back.  
“So, Dean, wanna show Zoe, Jayne and me how to off your kinds of bad guys?” Mal liked to be prepared. Or at least to be able to fake convincingly being prepared.  
Nothing was further from Dean’s mind than spending the night up and about, delivering Hunter-style combat training to a group of people from the future, but Mal was right, they had better know how to deal with what they would be up against.   
So he said: “Sure. What about the rest of the team?”   
“Don’t think they would be much help. Wash’s a smashin’ pilot, but he’s a lover, not a fighter and Kaylee, well, my mechanic is far too valuable to let her near any of your monsters.” Mal said, with a slight smile.  
“Okay, meet me outside in five.”

When Dean came back inside the house, it was almost morning. He was sweating from hours of training, his muscles were on fire and he was sporting a couple of rather impressive new bruises. Of course, the whole team had turned up regardless and that Zoe woman had objected rather violently when he had demonstrated some stuff on her husband. Rather extremely violently. Especially since he had real qualms about hitting a woman, even if she hit him first, Dean thought as he massaged his shoulder.  
He went upstairs and walked past Cas’ prone form into the bathroom.   
He need a shower. A nice, long and very hot shower.   
And some quality time with… himself. Himself agreed.  
He stood under shower, letting the hot water wash away his aches and ease the bunched-up muscles. His eyes closed and he took his dick in his hand, giving it a tentative stroke to test the waters. Immediately, his eyes popped open, because the first thing that had swum into his mind at the sensation of his hand on the silky skin of his penis had been those lips locked around it, blue eyes staring hard up into his face as Cas…  
Oh God, what was he thinking? Jerking off fantasizing about an angel of the Lord giving him a blow job was so going to send him straight back to hell. And then some.  
Yet his dick insisted that that was the way it was going to be – or else.  
He started the slow strokes and pulls again and softly moaned at the way something so wrong made him feel so right.

At that moment, he heard a louder, more painful moan and he let go of himself immediately, ripped back the shower curtains and came face to face with an extremely miserable looking, stubbly and generally disheveled angel of the Lord.  
“Dean, I don’t feel so good,” Castiel mumbled, as he steadied himself by putting a hand against Dean’s chest.  
“Cas, I’m in the fucking shower. We had this conversation. Multiple times. I’d think you would eventually get the concept of privacy. Maybe even in this millennium.”  
“There’s something not alright with me, Dean,” Cas said in a plaintive voice, looking at Dean with those damned sexy eyes, only they were filled with misery, not lust, like in Dean’s fantasy.  
“What you are is hung over, Cas. The price you pay for getting plastered. Commit the feeling to memory, so next time you feel inclined to drink booze, you think twice about it,” Dean growled, trying very hard to ignore the warm hand on his pecs.  
Castiel suddenly turned very quickly and barely managed to open the toilet lid, before commencing an avid discussion with God on the great white telephone, as some people affectionately called it.  
Of all the ways to lose a perfectly good hard-on, that definitely qualified as one of the lousiest.

He led Cas down to the kitchen, after three more long distance calls.   
“Sit. Observe.”  
He gave Cas strong, black coffee and fried him some eggs and bacon. When he placed the plate in front of the angel, Cas looked decidedly green around the gills.  
“Deep breaths, Cas. And then you eat that. Greasy shit, best hangover cure ever. Trust me. Been there, done that, went right back again.”  
Castiel tried to breathe deeply and evenly. The human had ample experience with hangovers, that much was true. So he should trust Dean in this matter, it made sense.  
He doubtfully eyed the egg and bacon on his fork for a moment, then heroically stuffed it in his mouth.  
It felt… good.  
He cleaned his plate and emptied his mug of coffee. Cas didn’t think he would like to experience the effects of alcohol again. Ever. But at least he was feeling less… miserable now.  
“Hangovers are the devil, Cas. Never forget that. And if I catch you drinking again, there will be hell to pay,” growled Dean in his ear as he scooped up plate and mug to take them to the sink.  
That was when Castiel, angel of Thursday, remembered the things he had said and done under the influence of alcohol and it took all of his angelic restraint not to lose his breakfast immediately. Oh God – and the hand on Dean’s pecs in the morning…   
He moaned softly and clutched his suddenly pounding head with both hands.

Dean felt like shit. Sleepless nights used to be easier to stomach, but there had just been too many of them lately. Add that angel complication to it all and no, this was not Dean Winchesters favorite day.  
He flopped down on the sofa and turned on the TV.   
Ten seconds later, he wished he hadn’t.  
He hadn’t even noticed that he had called for the others, but soon they were all huddled around the TV screen, watching in disbelief at the devastation a small army of demons, led by Lucifer himself, had wrought on a small town in the Midwest.   
The camera zoomed in on people torn in half or shredded to so many tiny pieces, you couldn’t even say with authority if that red stuff had once been a person or not.  
“How can they do that, show it all in such detail?” whispered Kaylee, tears running over her face.   
“I would assume the crew is possessed,” said Bobby softly, running his hand over his eyes as if to wipe away the images.  
The camera made a slow sweep of a kindergarten now and in the middle of all the horror stood an unassuming blond guy who smiled.  
“Welcome to my brave new world,” he said and the smile deepened. “Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name,” he chuckled.  
“Oh, man, could the guy be any cheesier if he tried?” snarked Dean. Anything not to comment on the tiny bodies littering the floor, anything. “Quoting the Stones. Jumpin’ Jesus on a pogo stick! Smarmy bastard.”  
Lucifer walked closer to the camera and said: “Don’t kid yourselves, Winchester boys, you can’t stop me now. You never could. I rose, despite your best efforts to stop that from happening. So what makes you think you stand a snowflake’s chance in hell now?”  
He smiled engagingly.  
“So, why not make it easy on yourselves. Why not just bring Sam to me, so he can be my vessel, as is his destiny. I wait for you here. And the longer it takes for you to show up, the more fun things I find to keep myself entertained with!”  
The screen froze on the image of a small, bloody hand clutching a plastic dinosaur.

 **Chapter Four – You can’t con a con man, can you?**

“So, when are we leaving?” asked Sam, with a desperate look in his eyes.  
“When we have a plan, I would assume,” came Mal’s calm voice from the back of the room. “Or have we given up on the idea of stopping the Apocalypse now?”  
“No, we haven’t,” Dean ground out. “Sam, sit the fuck back down. We need to think before we act.”  
Dean ran his hand through his hair then said with a lopsided grin: “Shit, did I just say that?”  
Bobby slammed a thick tome on the table.   
“This is the book I’ve been researching on. The Codex of the Griffin and the Rose. A medieval work on the Apocalypse and certain ways to stop Lucifer, should he rise. Took me a year to get my hands on it, started looking when you returned from Hell, Dean. Some of it doesn’t make any sense at all, but I’ve found a few things that could at least weaken Lucifer enough to give us more time.”  
“I don’t want him weakened, I want him the fuck gone,” snarled Dean.  
“You and me both, boy, but I ain’t got the solution yet, so you better work with what we got at this point.” Bobby looked angry.  
“The things that don’t make sense at all are probably code. Medieval monks were extremely good at encrypting information so that you still had some legible text, albeit one that sounded like the ravings of madmen,” Cas said quietly. “I can take a look at that for you.”

“Just be glad if the angel still has enough brain power left to get the job done, Bobby. How the hell could you let him drink?” Dean snarled.  
“It was my own decision, Dean. I don’t see why you would blame Robert for my error of judgment. I apologize for my… mistake.”  
Castiel looked decidedly uncomfortable.   
Dean wondered just how much of last night the angel remembered. He himself had a big problem pushing last night and this morning from his own memory.   
It was strange. Not the attraction to a man. He had been around that block a few times, though not very often. He got that, no problem. But he should definitely not feel attracted to an angel. That way lay madness, brimstone, torture and howling.  
“Very well. We’ll just pretend like it never happened. We’re good at that. In fact, we’re superb at that, aren’t we,” snarked Dean, then wondered where the hell that had come from.   
Too many things had been going on lately. He somehow couldn’t pretend anymore, not as well as he used to anyway. Couldn’t act as if he was okay and it was fine if Sam wanted to bonk a demon and drink her blood, as if it didn’t matter that he had broken the first seal and hadn’t managed to keep the last one closed. Couldn’t act as if it didn’t matter that he was supposed to be vessel to an archangel and Sam to the devil. He was going to pieces in easy installments and he knew it.  
He glanced up to see the blue eyes of Malcolm Reynolds looking pensively at him. He had the feeling that the man understood. Understood a great many things that weren’t all that obvious to the eye. He wasn’t sure yet if that made him feel comfortable or uneasy.

“So. We slow Lucy down. How?” Dean asked, not meeting anybody else’s eyes after his outburst.  
“There’s an ointment we can make. It needs to be applied to his vessel directly, though.”  
“Oh, sure. The devil will let you walk right up to him and let you pour ointment over him,” said Jayne, shaking his head.  
“Well, man, we obviously haven’t worked out the details of the plan yet,” barked Bobby.  
“Getting close is easy. All we have to do is pretend to try to fight him by other means than those we will then use,” said Mal with quiet certainty. “He will concentrate on the more immediate threat and not notice the real danger.”  
“Just so we’re crystal clear about this: You are going nowhere near him, you hear, Sammy?” Dean growled. Just what they needed, putting Lucy’s perfect vessel anywhere near him. No way was he gonna let that happen.  
“I’m gonna go there. Alone. Act as if I want to negotiate.”  
“Alone ain’t an option in my book, Dean. You want to put that ointment on that chu shie fook, you will be needing a distraction. So I’ll come with,” said Mal calmly, checking the bullets in his gun, then reholstering it carefully.  
“I’ll go then, too,” said Zoe. “I’ll take a long range rifle and watch both of your backs. And no,” she said curtly, when it looked like Mal was going to object, “don’t give me any fay hwa about not needing any backup. We all saw the images from that town on the…what was the word… the TV?.”

In the end, it was that man Jayne of all people who came up with the idea on how to get the ointment on Lucifer. Jayne, who was so obviously the muscle in this outfit and so very much not the brains.  
“You might as well use a fucking slingshot,” he had growled dismissively at one of their more colorful proposals and Wash had immediately launched into a funny story on how he had won the slingshot championship on some odd planet or other years ago.   
Bobby had rummaged through the desk drawers and had found Dean’s old slingshot, confiscated some 15 years ago and they had set to work on increasing the range and creating ointment charges that would fly far and true.  
A few hours of target practice later, Dean actually started to believe this shit might work. You had to hand it to the guys, they weren’t adverse to unusual approaches and they did vest themselves fully in the solution, once found. And Wash didn’t even mind the constant teasing he got from Jayne about using a pissy little boy’s weapon to go up against the Devil.  
He kicked some pebbles around on the way back to the house.   
Kick – now what to do about – kick – the angel? – kick.   
He had watched Cas carefully and had caught the surreptitious glances the angel had cast his way when he had thought Dean wasn’t looking. He had caught the wince when Kaylee had taken his arm and laughed at a joke he had made. And it had done weird, fluttery things to his stomach, that there wince.  
Oh no, let us so not go there now. It wasn’t the time and it sure as hell wasn’t the place, either.  
With that, he pushed the whole angel situation to the back of his mind. He needed to concentrate on the task at hand, really. He should not be considering blue eyes, mournful gazes and those lips. Not at all.  
He kicked a larger pebble high against a car wreck and it cracked the passenger window with a very satisfying crunch.  
He went back to discuss tactical angles with Mal and Zoe.

They were driving in silence. Mal was riding shotgun, Zoe, Wash and Cas were on the backseat.   
The flat, boring landscape that flew by outside did nothing to entertain Dean and his favorite Metallica tape had jammed and died. How was he supposed to make it through the motherfucking Apocalypse without Enter Sandman? He had angrily shoved Zeppelin in, but the Levee just wasn’t doing the same thing for him. At least Mal seemed to like the music. He was tapping his hand on his thigh in time with the beat.  
“You, uh, wanna tell me about your time a bit?” Dean finally asked. The future. What would it be like? He had stopped considering the future when he was around eighteen. Hunters didn’t have futures, hunters didn’t make it to retirement age.  
“I do not think that’s a good idea, Dean. The less you know about the future, the better,” came Castiel’s gravelly voice from the backseat. Figured.  
“Zachariah had no qualms about me knowing exactly what shit was gonna go down in the future when it suited his purpose. Don’t see how this is any different, except there never was a fucking Apocalypse in their past, right?” snarked Dean.  
Malcolm took a deep breath and surprised himself by telling the tale of Serenity Valley to Dean.

When they stopped for gas and supplies a few hours later, Cas stuck around, hovering besides Dean.  
“I… I need to apologize,” the angel said quietly.  
“You’ve done that already. Like, three times.”  
“I don’t fully understand what I did, so I don’t know if the apology was good enough.”  
Dean looked up from filling the Impala’s tank and saw nothing but confusion in Castiel’s eyes. Not good. Cas was asking him to explain the one thing Dean just did not want to talk about. Okay, the guy didn’t know shit about emotions.   
Well, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king – and in the spirit of this old saying, Dean Winchester found himself the resident expert on emotions.  
So he closed the tank, put the tap back on the pump and said: “Sounded to me like you were kinda coming on to me.”  
The angel blinked rapidly.  
“I don’t understand the expression, Dean.”  
“You, uh, seemed to be interested in me. Beyond friendship. You know. Sexually?”  
“I… I don’t know how… Dean…” Cas looked even more confused. His agitation grew until he suddenly hit the Impala’s trunk hard with his fist.  
“Hey, man, what did you do that for? Shit, you dented the trunk, Cas!” Also, Cas hand was bleeding, Dean noticed. Fuck, that angel was seriously messed up. But now just wasn’t the time for this. Now so wasn’t the time for this.  
“Cas, we need to get this Lucifer thing done. I can’t do that if I have to worry about you too. We’re good right now. And I promise we’ll talk when we get back to Bobby’s. But I need you to be at the top of your game here,” Dean said, hating himself for it.  
The angel nodded, a strange expression on his face and refused to let Dean take care of his hand.

They drove into town at noon. All chatter stopped at the sight of all that devastation.   
They should’ve waited, Dean thought. Should’ve waited until afternoon would have cast at least some benevolent shadow on the sights that now lay spread out in the unrelenting noon sunlight.   
It was a warzone, but it became clear from the sight of mutilated corpses that, other than in formal warfare, there were no rules here. No Geneva convention, no code of honor, no international law. Just corpses everywhere. Sometimes, it was even impossible to make out if the bloody slab of meat had been human or animal prior to its violent death.  
The buildings had mostly been burned to the ground and their blackened hulls gaped like ruined teeth in a devastated, rotting mouth.  
Mal’s mouth formed a white line. This was just like Serenity Valley, just like it. The aggressors had kept coming until nobody was left alive. Evil transcended time and space. Evil was as old as time and as limitless as space and you could neither run nor hide from it.   
The captain felt sick to the core of his being, sick to the marrow of his bones, at the sight of the devastation that had been wrought to what had obviously once been a loving community and a fine place to live.  
The closer they got to the center of the wreckage, the more horrid their surroundings became. Finally, they stopped the car and continued on foot towards the kindergarten at the epicenter of destruction.

As Dean was walking towards Lucifer, Mal at his side, he was sure that no way were they going to harm the devil with a fucking slingshot. How could he ever have thought that this damned plan was going to work?  
“From your nervous expression, I take it you didn’t bring Sam to me. Now that is what I would call unfortunate.”  
Nothing had prepared Dean for the blinding, red hot pain that suddenly coursed through his body. His legs buckled and he fell to his knees. He heard Lucifer chuckle and say: “You I simply don’t need, Dean. On the contrary, you are a damned nuisance and a danger to me to boot. Goodbye now, Dean Winchester.”  
He dimly heard Mal starting to discuss with the devil. He could see, though not very clearly, that Mal subtly moved out of Wash’s line of fire.  
The devil laughed, clearly amused by the frail human arguing with him, a fallen angel, the demon king.  
Suddenly, there was a whooshing sound and something smacked into the devil’s chest and burst. The ointment spread on his chest and started smoking. The flesh of Lucifer’s vessel started to bubble and boil and with a scream, he whom they had once called the Lightbringer left.  
Dean laughed through gritted teeth. The pain slowly receded.   
They had conned the Father of Lies. Conned him with a child’s toy


	3. Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover -  3/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.

_**Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover - 3/5**   
_

**** ** **

****Disclaimer:** ** ****  
** **

  
As usual, don’t I wish I’d own them… Borrowed with love and respect from Joss Whedon (JW is my master now) and the Kripteam.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Genre:** slash  
 **Spoilers:** S5  
 **Word Count:** ~20.534  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Cas, Sam, Bobby, Mal, Wash/Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne  
 **Warnings:** language, booze, man on man action  
 **Thanks:** [](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/profile)[**jayfray18**](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/) for teeth and zippers and some awesome beta-ing, wingfrog for the amazing artwork, [](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/profile)[**rogue_pixie88**](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/) for cheerleading and [](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/profile)[**jacen_c_solo**](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/) for not giving up on me right from the start for molesting Firefly.  
 **Summary:** The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.  
For the sake of me being incapable of handling so many characters AND do them all justice, this is set before the Firefly series. In the SPN ‘verse, any odd time in the future of the current spot of S5 will do.  
Check <http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/ChinesePhrases> and [http://web.missouri.edu/~heivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf](http://web.missouri.edu/%7Eheivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf) for translations to the Chinese phraselets.

**  
Chapter Five – Holy guacamole  
**

“How much time did that buy us, Cas?” Dean asked in their dingy motel room that evening.

“I don’t know. He either tries to re-enter this vessel, if it heals in time, or he needs to find another one. On top of that, he most certainly was damaged himself as he was ejected from the vessel.”

“Was that ointment really that powerful? I mean, it smelled like hell, but…” said Wash incredulously.

He had damaged the devil. Yay he. He grinned broadly at his wife, who grinned briefly back, before making a dismissive motion with her hand, calling her exuberant husband to order.

“Yes. It was extremely powerful. The monks knew what they were talking about. They fought demons, that was the purpose of their order,” Castiel said quietly.

“A demon fighting order? Cool!” said Wash gleefully. Kick-ass monks. Things certainly were interesting in this time and space.

Castiel looked sharply at Wash, then said: “I will return to Bobby, to help with the deciphering of the rest of the codex. Lucifer might try a lot harder to get to Sam, now, if only he knew where to find him. Which he doesn’t, thanks to the Enochian on your ribcages. But we can’t run the risk of him finding a way to break that protection.”

The usual wing flutter sounds and Castiel was gone.

“Holy crap, you ever heard of knockin’?” yelled Bobby as Castiel popped up right behind the old hunter.

Muttering more curses under his breath, Bobby pulled back a chair and motioned for the angel to sit down at the kitchen table. At the end of the day, Bobby was glad to see Castiel. Much as he hated to admit it, but the support of the angel had become an invaluable part of their operation. And Bobby kind of liked the deadpanning, too.

“Where’s Sam?”

“He went to town, to the public library to check on some sources. They got a surprisingly good section on the occult. Could be cuz I used to wine and dine the librarian back in the days,” Bobby said with a smirk and a slight wink.

“Have you made any progress with the codex?”

“Yeah, some. Here’s what I got so far. They are describing a kind of recipe to create the weapon to banish Lucifer back to Hell. In this section, they talk of an artifact, which is part of the ingredients for the ritual that will forge the weapon. They call it the “mortar of St. Declan”, but there’s no such thing in the mythology of the saint, nothing in all my sources.”

“So it’s a kind of code.” Castiel tilted his head sideways and ran his finger over the illustration of St. Declan in the codec.

“There aren’t many pictorial representations of St. Declan. In those I have seen, he is usually depicted holding an ordinary Bishop’s shepherd’s crook. Not here, though. Here, he is holding a sickle with a strangely formed handle.”

He leant over and showed the page to Bobby.

“Lemme see. Hmm… it almost looks like a mortar. You think this could be it?”

“Possibly. Wait here.” With that, the angel was gone.

Cas stood in an unassuming country graveyard inIreland, trying to get his bearings. A few moments later, he walked towards a crumbling headstone and knelt before the grave. Yes, this was the right one. He could feel the saint in the soil, feel the residual presence of the forces of good. It was not right to disturb St. Declan’s rest, yet it needed to be done. There was no way around it.

He held out his hand over the grave and said a few soft words in a language long dead. The ground started to shake slightly and finally a metal box broke through the soil. It was roughly the size of a shoebox, decorated with celtic knotwork and was made of bronze. Given the time it had rested in the ground, it was in remarkably good condition.  
The angel of Thursday smiled. Sometimes, it was a good thing being the angel equivalent of a geek and knowing heaps of stuff, like, for instance, the true burial ground of an old saint.

For some strange reason, he wished Dean were there so he could show his knowledge off a bit. The thought made him blush furiously. He should not be thinking such things. At all.  
He smoothed the disturbed soil over and whispered a short blessing in Gaelic.  
He hoped the saint would forgive him for disturbing his rest, but given that he needed the sickle to defeat the devil himself, Cas felt sure St. Declan would not only not mind, but be cheering him on, if he knew.

Castiel was still smiling when he materialized again in Bobby’s kitchen. He put the box in front of Bobby with the tiniest of flourishes and opened the lid.  
The sickle was resting on some old fabric, tattered, frayed and almost disintegrated. It was gleaming dully in the light of the kitchen lamp. A beautiful piece of work. Any museum would be proud to put it on display.

“You wanna explain just where you got that from?” growled Bobby, impressed despite himself.

“Ireland. The saint’s grave, to be precise.” Castiel preened a bit. Just a tiny bit. So tiny it really didn’t count, did it?

Bobby whistled. Now that angel started to come in real handy.

“Can you read what’s written on the handle?” Bobby turned the sickle in the light, trying to make sense on the markings.

“I am the light that illuminates your path when all lights fail, I am the rock you can cling to when the earth is unrestful.”

“Meaning?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

Bobby sighed and reopened the codec. There was nothing there about light and rocks. Nothing.

“The next bit talks about ‘the oil that bled from the burning bush’. Now don’t tell me you know where that might be found, too, angel boy,” Bobby said, despite the gruff words to the contrary half hoping the angel would merely lift his chin in that aggravating manner of his, pop off, pop back in and the problem would be solved.

“No, Robert. I don’t even know what that refers to.”

Bobby sighed deeply. Figured. Just when he had finally gotten used to that angel mojo, the angel would have to come up blank.

“Can’t you go do research?”

There surely would be a library to end all libraries in Heaven. Or would they use… no, they would not use computers, would they?

“No. I am cut off from the resources of the Heavenly Hosts.”

Castiel kept his face carefully blank. He did not wish for the humans to know just how much that hurt him, just how cripplingly painful the cut-off really was.

“Well, maybe those aren’t needed at all. There must be other archives, church archives, you could access.”

Cas stilled. Yes, the Vatican might be an option. It wasn’t even that heavily secured and most of the time, nobody upstairs bothered monitoring it, either.

“I think I know where to go. It would be good if I could take you with me.”

“What, mojoing somewhere with you? You got to be shitting me!”

“No, I think I need you to solve the riddle and I can’t remove things from there. It would not be…. ethical.”

“Ethical? Where the hell are you thinking of taking me?”

“The Vatican, Robert.”

“Sure thing, great. Always wanted to see the Vatican. Not. Take Sam.”

“So, you come here often?” Sam asked in a very low whisper.

“No. Usually there is no need,” Castiel whispered back.

They were creeping through the library of the Vatican. Huge, ornate wooden shelves lined the walls and created long corridors throughout the room. And this was only one of multiple large rooms, needless to say.

“What exactly are we looking for?” asked Sam.

“There is a section that holds all sorts of medieval codices and their translations. There might be a translation to the Codex of the Griffin and the Rose. If there isn’t, we could look for a book on the kind of symbolism the monks typically used. That might help, too.”

They found the section. Of course it would have been too much to expect that there actually would be a proper translation for this particular codex, but at least Castiel managed to find the other book he had been talking about, the ‘teach yourself monk-speak’ book.

“Can we take it with us?”

“No, not a good idea. Can’t you do something with that hand scan thing and your computer?”

Sam quickly booted his laptop, unpacked his hand scanner and got to work. An hour later, the whole book had been scanned and put back on the shelf.  
They left as quietly as they had come and not even the elaborate security system was any the wiser.

Wash and Zoe had withdrawn to their room next door and Dean and Mal were sitting in companionable silence, sipping slowly on their longnecks.  
Dean shouldn’t feel relaxed in the company of an almost complete stranger, but there was no denying that he did. Malcolm Reynolds and he, they had a lot in common, he thought. They both cared too much about people they had been made to protect, while they were both trying hard to pretend they didn’t care about anything. And at one point or another, they had been broken and badly put back together. The captain, however, seemed to have survived it all a little better than Dean himself, he thought. He didn’t seem beaten down by what he had been through and the blackness that sometimes looked back at Dean from eyes of the face in the mirror was missing in Mal.

“You know what’s funny, captain?” Dean asked with a little huff of a smile.

“That we met yesterday and still understand one another?” said the older man with a lift of his eyebrow, tilting his bottle in silent toast to the hunter.

“Yeah. I don’t… usually, it… I trust Bobby. I trust Cas – and that took time, too. And… I guess I trust my brother, too, only that’s complicated. But I never trusted a stranger before, you know.”

Dean took a long pull from his bottle.

Mal nodded, “You know, the funny thing is, I always thought life was simpler in the past. Not so much betrayal, not so much general shit going on. A simple life. You know what I mean?”

“And I always thought the future would be nice and clean and everyone would be happy and there would be no more war and betrayal and shit. Guess we’re both pretty naïve, eh?”

“No. But we’ve been to hell and back, well, okay, you have literally, I figuratively and we just need to believe that that’s not the fucking norm. Even though it apparently is.” Mal shook his head.

“But we never give up. No retreat, no surrender, just like Springsteen sang,” said Dean and took another long swig from the bottle.

“So. We’re going to win this chui niu together, right?” Mal said.

“Dunno what tsway-niou means, but, yeah, we’re gonna win this shit together.”

“See, you do know what it means after all,” said Mal, laughing. “C’mon, let’s have another one. I like your beer.”

Later, when Mal tried to fall asleep, he thought back on their conversation.  
There was one thing that he did not have in common with Dean, he thought rather grimly. He had come out of it all fighting mad, ready to kick any- and everybody in the ass who dared cross him, unwilling to take orders or such shit from anyone anymore.

But he had never had the tendency to self-destruct or the deeply ingrained self-loathing that he could see in Dean. He had seen it in many of the few survivors ofSerenityValley, though. Besides considering himself unworthy of respect, friendship or love, Dean seemed to feel responsible for it all, be it under his control or not, be it really his issue or not. And that sense of being the one in charge and the one to be held accountable for everything was wearing the man down, was propelling him on a narrow path along the face of a steep cliff.

Mal could understand it all, even though he didn’t share the sentiment. He just hoped the hunter would find something to hold on to, something that would pull him off the gaping abyss and back into life before it was too late. There seemed to be a strong connection between Dean and the angel. Mal wondered if that might be the one thing that might be able to save Dean Winchester from the destructive monster inside in the end.

As they drove into Bobby’s lot the next day, Wash said: “Hey, you know, are we, like, gonna party now? Because we kicked major butt and we deserve it, I think!”

Dean grinned and said: “I completely second that motion. You’re one helluva kickass shot, man!”

“Thank you, thank you, that I most certainly am!” Wash said gleefully.

“Yes, there will be drinks. And a great many of them!” Dean said, drumming his fingers on the wheel and smiling in anticipation.

Cas would be there.  
At that thought, something warm and nice made its way through Dean’s body. Of course, that was just because Cas would have found some vital intel in the meantime and with it, they would find out very soon how to put the Devil out of commission for good.

“Shiny, man, shiny!” Wash was still grinning like a jackass when they parked at the back of the house.

They walked into the house, still laughing and horsing around. Bobby, Sam and Cas were sitting in the kitchen, obviously chin deep in research, the rest of the Serenity crew was nowhere to be seen.

“Yo, guys, what’s up?” Wash asked, grinning like a jackass. “We kicked major butt, people. Didn’t we, Dean?”

“Dude, we were awesome. And then some,” grinned Dean.

“We already know. Castiel told us all about it,” said Sam absently, waving his hand at them.

He was translating the book’s Latin and was having a hard time of it. The book was handwritten and there were a lot of instances where the words weren’t clearly legible. Sometimes the monks had used expressions that were unknown to Sam and he simply wasn’t making the kind of progress he should be making.

“So, we gonna party now, or what?”

“We’re working, can’t you see?” growled Bobby.

Dean was about to say something decidedly snarky, judging from his expression, when Mal put a hand on his shoulder and said: “Hey, why don’t we go have a few beers on Serenity? Plenty of space there and we wouldn’t disturb their work.”

Dean shrugged his shoulders and said acidly: “Well, sure. It’s not like there was anything big going down. Not like we faced down the devil or something, so no need to accommodate us, no need to congratulate us, no need to make allowances if we want to party, right?”

**  
Chapter Six – Cover me in oil and make me see the light  
**

“Guys, I think I found something!” Sam said excitedly.

Finally! After hours of research, he had stumbled upon something in the internet, guided by a pointer from the translation book.

“The ‘oil that bled from the burning bush’ actually is said to be just that, some oil that was collected by Moses from the remnants of the burning bush. It was kept inJerusalem for centuries, but then was lost around the time of the Roman occupation. Nobody seems to know where it is now, but I have found one reference that it might be hidden inside a reliquary in a monastery inSyria.”

Cas nodded. That could be easily checked.

“Good work, Sam. I will see if I can find it.”

With that he winked out, only to reappear a few seconds later, a small stone jar in his hands. He placed it carefully on the table.

“So it was really there?” Sam picked it up gingerly to inspect it. It looked to be very old, indeed.

“Yes. The monks objected quite strongly to my taking it, though,” Cas said quietly, while he pulled a large kitchen knife from his abdomen. He looked mournfully at the bloody hole in his shirt, then promptly and thoroughly fixed the damage. “Bobby, have you found anything out about the inscription on the sickle?”

“What, in the tenth of a second you were gone? Sure, found heaps of shit in that blink of an eye,” Bobby said, sarcasm dripping heavily from his voice. What was the angel thinking?

“Apologies. I… I forgot I travelled back to the moment I left, so as not to waste any precious time.”

Castiel looked strangely distracted, Bobby thought.

Castiel had received a flash from Dean’s consciousness just as he was retrieving the little jar. Laughing with the redhead. Again. Drinking heavily. Again.   
Cas wasn’t sure which of those things worried him more.

Dean’s drinking was an issue. Had been an issue ever since he had brought Dean back from hell. He was watching carefully, had been, ever since. Dean just wouldn’t stop hating himself for what he had done in hell. He was completely incapable of seeing that it hadn’t been his fault at all. So he drank and he pretended everything was alright, even though it was blindingly, painfully obvious that it wasn’t. Every day, Dean had unraveled a little bit more. The man had gone to pieces in small installments and Cas had watched him do it. He had been forbidden to interfere, forbidden to care, forbidden to feel, only it hadn’t worked, had it? It hadn’t even worked before he had gone renegade and it sure as … hell… wasn’t working now.

And the girl? Cas still didn’t like her, not even when he was sober.  
All of this had shot through his head as his hand had hovered over the little stone jar and it had been so distracting that one of the monks had actually managed to stab him with a knife.

Dean was drunk. To all intents and purposes, totally shitfaced.  
He gingerly made his way back over to the house, fighting the urge to giggle as he meandered in the general direction of the light from the living room windows. He was in a wonderful mood.  
It had been a good evening.

The spaceship’s crew was really good fun to be with and he had been able to tell some of the stories he usually could never tell anyone. He didn’t know too many people who, while knowing what he did, hadn’t heard all the old tales yet. Usually, he couldn’t talk about what they did at all. And Sam and Bobby weren’t given to spending long evenings swapping old stories they mostly had been a part of back when they had happened, anyway.

A lot of ooohs and aaahs and many, many drinks later, Dean was filled with a warm, glowy feeling that had nothing to do with the booze and was actually looking forward to going to sleep. There would be no nightmares this night, surely. He felt too good, too whole for that. And that was a nice, no, a very nice feeling.

This must be what a night out with friends felt like. Dean had never experienced such a thing before. The only thing that went on outside the family (yes, absolutely, thank you very much) was sex. And none of those random girls or guys he had fucked had ever learned a thing about him.  
Mostly, not even his real name.

Rapidly losing his happy feeling, Dean was just one more such thought shy of becoming a sad, maudlin’ drunk, when he saw something move in the shadows. His hand reflexively went to the small of his back and around the handle of his gun before he even noticed it.  
A figure disentangled itself from the darkness and walked slowly towards him.  
Castiel.

Dean felt a shiver run through his bones. He had promised Cas a good, long talk, but surely he didn’t want to have that now of all times? Shit, that kind of thing was damn near impossible to settle when sober, let alone when drunk.

“Hey Cas,” he slurred, weaving towards the angel. “I’ve had a few.” He hiccuped. “You don’ wanna talk now, do ya?”

The angel closed the distance between them with a few determined strides and kissed Dean hard on the mouth.

“No, I don’t want to talk now, Dean,” growled Castiel before grabbing the human hard by the shoulders and winking them off.

They were in an opulent room.  
Gilded furniture, satin bedspread, candle glow. Two glasses of champagne and a bottle in a bucket full of ice on the nightstand, some caviar and crackers and a bowl with… condoms? And a tube of… lube?  
Dean was giggling like crazy.  
Cas had mojoed them to a love nest. A gold plated, shining love nest with burgundy red accessories that looked like nothing Dean had ever had sex in.  
In short, it was just one sparkly rhinestone shy of looking like the world’s most expensive bordello.

“Cas, dude, where the hell are we and what is this place?”

Dean turned towards the angel and completely overbalanced. He grabbed hold of the lapel of Cas’ coat, rested his head against the angel’s cheek and giggled some more.  
Dean’s breath tickled Castiel’s neck and that did strange things to the angel’s nether regions. Strange, exciting things, things that Cas wasn’t entirely sure how to handle.  
Cas slid closer and felt his crotch rub against Dean’s thigh.  
Sparks exploded behind his closed eyes.

He didn’t quite know how to deal with the sensation, other than to moan helplessly and to rub some small, random circles with his hands on Dean’s lower back. His hip made a rolling motion of its own volition and he almost sobbed with the intensity of the pleasure that shot through his entire system.  
Castiel had done thorough research about human mating, yet suddenly his mind had gone completely blank.

  
“You picked a fuckin’ awf’l time for this, man, I’m wasted. Can’t pop your ‘ngelic mmmnch.. cherry when I’m like this, ‘s not a good idea,” Dean whispered softly into Cas’ ear.

He had a hard time forming complex words like ‘cherry’. Part of that was because he was blind drunk, but the other part of that was due to most of his blood shooting downwards to his dick at record speed. Which felt so beyond good it was unreal.

He still managed to grind out: “We can’t do this now, Cas.”

His hands, though, belied his words, as the right gently wandered underneath Castiel’s suit jacket to caress the angel’s side and count the bumps and hollows that made up the angel’s ribcage. The left rested on Cas’ sternum. He slipped a finger between the buttons of Cas’ shirt and softly rubbed the tiny patch of bare skin beneath. Cas moaned again. Must be the world’s fucking smallest and weirdest erogenous zone, Dean thought, although not in quite such clear words. Those moans did really bad things to him. He wanted to make Castiel moan a lot more, a lot harder, a lot louder.  
Not good, not good at all.

He moved the angel over to the bed and pushed him down on it.  
Then he took off his boots and jacket and climbed in besides Cas. He put his arms around Castiel and pulled him close. As close as he possibly could without breaking the angel’s ribs.

“Are we going to have sex now?” the angel asked in an uncertain voice. If so, there were things Cas needed to remember to do. He had, after all, read up on what he was supposed to do.

“No, man, already said I’m wasted. In the mornin’, ‘kay?” Dean buried his face in the angel’s hair and sighed contentedly.

“Okay, Dean. Do you wish me to leave so you can sleep?” Still the angel’s voice was very uncertain.

“Don’t you dare. I’m gonna hold on to you until the morning, if that’s alright wi’ you,” Dean mumbled into Cas’ back.

“Alright then,” Castiel whispered and smiled when the only reaction he got was a soft snore.

Dean’s hold on Cas’ waist, however, never weakened.

“Bobby, have you seen Dean? He didn’t come in last night,” Sam asked.

“Probably got stinking drunk and keeled over on the ship,” Bobby said gruffly while frying some bacon and eggs.

Dean’s drinking had gotten a lot better since he’d settled things a bit with Sam, but Bobby still usually kept a pretty tight watch over the amount of alcohol Dean drank. Just checkin’, of course, just checkin’.

Wash sauntered into the kitchen.

“Morning, guys! Dean still sleeping it off? Man, that was some kickass party we had ourselves!” The man grinned, as usual and grabbed some coffee and a plate.

“We wouldn’t know, we thought he was sleeping on the ship,” Sam said tersely, worry clearly written on his face.

“No need to get anxious, Sam, he might’ve just been too drunk to find the house and could have crawled into one of the wrecked cars to sleep it off,” Bobby growled.

Sam worried his lower lip. Didn’t sound like Dean. No matter how blind drunk he was, Dean always made it home. _Always._ Even as a teenager, he had always managed to find the motel or abandoned house they were staying in, no matter how plastered he was. When he said as much, Bobby grew worried, too.

“Well, what are you waiting for, boy? Go find him!”

Soon, the whole Serenity crew was helping Sam to look for his brother. They split up and searched the whole junkyard very thoroughly, but Dean just seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth. When they were finished with the junkyard, they widened the search to cover the woodlands around it.

Sam was developing a sore on his thumb from hitting the speed dial button with Dean’s number over and over again. To no avail.

 


	4. Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover -  4/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.

_  
**Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover - 4/5**   
_   
**  
  
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**

**  
**Disclaimer:**   
**   
As usual, don’t I wish I’d own them… Borrowed with love and respect from Joss Whedon (JW is my master now) and the Kripteam.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Genre:** slash  
 **Spoilers:** S5  
 **Word Count:** ~20.534  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Cas, Sam, Bobby, Mal, Wash/Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne  
 **Warnings:** language, booze, man on man action  
 **Thanks:** [](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/profile)[**jayfray18**](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/) for teeth and zippers and some awesome beta-ing, wingfrog for the amazing artwork, [](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/profile)[**rogue_pixie88**](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/) for cheerleading and [](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/profile)[**jacen_c_solo**](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/) for not giving up on me right from the start for molesting Firefly.  
 **Summary:** The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.  
For the sake of me being incapable of handling so many characters AND do them all justice, this is set before the Firefly series. In the SPN ‘verse, any odd time in the future of the current spot of S5 will do.  
Check <http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/ChinesePhrases>and [http://web.missouri.edu/~heivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf](http://web.missouri.edu/%7Eheivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf) for translations to the Chinese phraselets.

 **  
Chapter Seven - Love to hear the sound you make   
**

Dean woke up feeling better than he had any right to feel.  
He wasn’t hung over. He should be, though. He should have the hangover from hell right now, in fact.  
His face was buried in a… trench coat? Definitely a trench. Tan.  
His arms were wrapped tightly around some … hips. He traced the curve of the bone with his fingers.  
Castiel.

And the room was still glistening in gold and burgundy red and the satin sheets felt nice and cool against his cheek.  
The angel wanted to have sex with him. That was a staggering prospect. Dean recalled promising the said sex in the morning. Which would be round about now, right?

“Cas?” he whispered.  
“Yes, Dean?”  
“I… I’m awake now.”  
“Obviously.”

Castiel turned over to look at the human. Dean looked surprisingly alert, given that he had just woken up. Cas was glad he had made sure Dean would not suffer from a hangover. With the angel’s recent experiences, he was certain they would not be getting anywhere if he hadn’t taken care of that.

Cas lifted his hand and gently cupped Dean’s jaw. You cupped jaws like that prior to kissing a person. He had done thorough research and he would not forget that again, he vowed.

He touched his lips to Dean’s, just like he had read in that book. He sucked softly on Dean’s lower lip. Dean opened his mouth and his tongue caressed Cas’ upper lip. The angel moaned, opened his mouth, Dean’s tongue slid inside and at that precise moment, all Cas’ well-researched moves were once more completely forgotten.

Dean knew he should be talking, not kissing. He should talk the angel out of having sex with someone as… _tainted_ as he was. He should discuss consequences, he should do a gadzillion things, but what he should definitely not do was what he was doing right now. Deepening the kiss, making it sexy, exciting, _arousing_ ; making the angel moan hotly into Dean’s mouth.  
All of that was a bad idea and Dean thought he smelled brimstone for a moment, while his hand was drawn to the sizeable bulge in Cas’ pants like a magnet. He started fondling Cas’ cock through the thin wool of the angel’s pants. Castiel’s hips bucked in response.  
Dean disentangled his lips from Castiel’s and took a deep breath.

“Cas, we should…”

“No talking,” growled the angel and claimed Dean’s mouth again with his.

It had turned out that he actually didn’t really have to remember his research; his body seemed to understand what was going on a lot better than his mind ever could.  
Cas rubbed his crotch against Dean’s thigh, like the night before. It produced the same wild sparks behind his lids and the same primitive sensations in his gut.  
Cas tried to pull Dean’s t-shirt off, but laying down, that was easier said than done. Dean let go of the angel’s hip and crotch long enough to help.

Cas ran his hands over Dean’s torso, just glad to finally touch skin. Appreciating the firm muscles, savouring the feel of hardened nipples against the palms of his hands. For a long time, that was all the angel did, exploring Dean’s chest, abdomen, shoulders, arms, every bit of bare skin he could reach.  
Every bit except the handprint scar on Dean’s shoulder.

Dean was in flames.  
He had been in bed with experienced people, with veritable tigers in the sack, actually, with women who had squeezed orgasms from him that seemed to go on forever, with men who had been so sure and knowledgeable that he thought he’s melt from their deft touches.

Still, just laying there, feeling Cas uncertainly explore his body made all of that pale in comparison.  
This was the best sex he had ever had – and they hadn’t even had any yet!  
Why wasn’t the angel touching his scar? He so wanted the angel to touch his scar. Oh God. Cas was fumbling with Dean’s fly. Even that was almost enough to make him come inside his pants like some stupid schoolboy.  
He grabbed Castiel’s hands and placed them back high on his chest.

“Easy, okay, Cas?”

Cas looked confused and more than just a little hurt.  
Why did Dean not want him to take off his pants? He was sure it was necessary for copulation purposes.

“This is your show, ‘kay, Cas? Can’t come just yet. Let me take care of you now, ‘kay?”

“If this is my show, then I should get what I want. What I want is you without the jeans. Now.”

Cas tilted his head. The fucking angel actually tilted his fucking head at him. In bed. And gave him orders, too. Now if that wasn’t beyond sexy, he didn’t know what was.

“Keep that tone up and this could get interesting,” Dean said, grinning.

Castiel looked at him, with a curious expression in his eyes. He slid lower in the bed, his eyes never leaving Dean’s.  
He bent down, still looking intently at Dean, and took the zipper of Dean’s fly in his mouth.  
Dean groaned deeply.  
No way, no.

Way, apparently.  
Cas pulled the zipper down with his teeth, eyes burning. He pulled the jeans and boxers down over Dean’s hips in a single movement. The angel had still kept his eyes locked with Dean’s, but now he was drinking in the sight of his human’s massive erection. He tentatively placed his hand on the shaft. Dean breathed in sharply, as Cas ran his thumb along the side, relishing in the silky feel of the skin and the uncoordinated vowel sounds emanating from Dean’s lips at the maneuver.

Castiel moved up Dean’s body again to kiss his lover deeply once more. His hand started to stroke Dean’s dick gently and rhythmically. Dean groaned and adjusted Cas’ hand to encircle his cock and demonstrated just how hard and deep he liked the strokes to be.

He wouldn’t last much longer, anyway, so best just go with the flow, then regroup and go for the big bang afterwards.  
Dean fumbled Cas’ fly open and started stroking the angel through his briefs. He was nearing completion and couldn’t keep the low noises that travelled up his throat, filled his mouth and threatened to choke him inside anymore. Dean kept moaning Cas’ name over and over until he finally came, shooting pearly white strands over Cas’ hand and his own stomach.

Castiel looked curiously at Dean.

“This was an orgasm, then, wasn’t it?”  
“Yeah.”  
“I want one.”

Dean laughed out loud. Lovemaking 101 with an angel was so much fun, who would’ve thought?

“Patience, Cas, good things come to those who wait. It’s a virtue, you know, patience is.”

He grinned wickedly. And for a moment there, it looked as if the angel was less than a tenth of an inch away from stating in no uncertain and very dirty words what Dean could do with the said virtue.  
Instead, however, the angel methodically took his clothes off. And that in turn rekindled the interest of Dean’s dick way ahead of schedule.

Dean ran his hands over Castiel’s naked body, every inch of it, as if he had been charged with committing the dips, curves and knobs to memory. In between, he kept rechecking if Cas was enjoying this simple act of touching as much as he was. It took just a glance into lust-blown eyes to confirm that the angel was more than enjoying it.

Suddenly, Cas whispered into Dean’s ear: “I want more than this. I’ve read… we can…”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed you were a good little boy scout and came prepared, I saw the lube and the rubbers.”

Cas looked worried and seemed about to say something, but apparently couldn’t quite find the words. Dean smiled at him and said: “Don’t worry, Cas, I won’t hurt you. I’ll be gentle, I promise.”

“That’s… nice.”

Now that was strange. The angel had gone crimson and was absentmindedly playing with the edge of the sheet.

“Cas, what is it? If you don’t tell me, I can’t help you, you know.”

“I think… I think I don’t want to be… the word is ‘bottom’, right? I want to top,” Cas said, with that slight authoritarian growl back in his voice. That growl that did those things to Dean’s dick…

Dean was a little dumbfounded at this revelation. He had never let anyone fuck him like that before, something had always held him back. It had been a scary thought, being at the mercy of someone else, but with Cas, it was different. If his angel wanted to be on top, then so be it.  
 _His angel.  
_  
Dean smiled softly. He had been so worried about the implications and consequences of admitting that he wanted and angel and that Cas was his, but now that they were actually making out, it all seemed so clear and natural and perfect. Strange, but who was he to look a gift horse in the mouth?

“Okay, Cas. It’s your party. We can do that, if that’s what you want. I’ll help you, okay?”

“I don’t need any help. I just need your consent,” growled Cas and his human just nodded to that.

Castiel leaned down and kissed Dean hard on the mouth. He started to caress Dean’s butt with one hand while the other started playing with Dean’s balls. Whatever research the angel had done, it had apparently been pretty thorough, thought Dean wryly. Where would an angel of the Lord research the intricacies of gay sex, he wondered briefly, before the sensations became too intense for coherent thought.

Dean started to turn over, but Cas held him back.  
He wanted to watch what the things he was doing did to his human. Wanted to see Dean’s lovely green eyes glaze over with lust, wanted to see the total surrender in them.  
This felt so beyond good.

Dean, hot and pliable in his hands. He reached for the lube.  
Dean, writhing as the angel inserted first one finger, then two into his tight ass. Slow, agonizingly slow fucking motions, then a third finger, stretching, searching, finding the sweet spot deep inside of Dean.  
Dean, yelling at him to put his fucking dick there instead so he’d finally have a fucking chance at fucking coming.  
Dean, wedging his hands into the headboard for better leverage, bucking and swearing until the angel covered his filthy-cute mouth with his own.

Castiel pulled his fingers out and immediately felt Dean’s moan of protest in his mouth.  
He replaced his fingers with his cock in one fluid movement. Dean whimpered, the sound all but lost in the angel’s mouth. Cas picked up a steady, pounding rhythm, as if he’d never done anything than fuck Dean good and proper all his life.

  
 _So good._  
It was just not possible for something to feel so fucking good. Dean simply rode out wave on wave of absolute pleasure – and he wasn’t even coming yet. Cas was driving in harder now, still kissing Dean, still fucking him with his tongue and his dick at the same time.

He wanted to say something, to say anything, but Castiel was still in control of his mouth as well as the rest of his body, plundering and sucking at will.  
When the angel finally wrapped his beautiful fingers around Dean’s dick and firmly placed the other hand on the scar on Dean’s shoulder, he just couldn’t hold it in any longer.  
All it took was one single deft downward stroke and Dean came in one giant, hot wave of pleasure.  
Cas followed only fractions of a second behind. Dean felt the angel’s come inside him. If he hadn’t already spent himself, he would’ve now, it just felt twelve kinds of awesome.

They lay spent, panting.  
Slowly, reason returned and Dean suddenly understood that the reason he had felt Cas’ orgasm with such intensity had been that the angel had forgotten to use a condom.

 **  
Chapter Eight - So close your eyes, slow your breath   
**

Sam was frantic. They had been looking for Dean for hours now and there was no trace of his brother anywhere.  
Wash had even offered to take Serenity up for a sweep of the surrounding land, scanning for body heat, but Mal had interjected that they needed to keep a low profile and taking a spacecraft to the skies overSouth Dakota did in no book he knew of constitute a low profile.

Just when Sam had decided in his desperation he’d file a missing person’s report with the authorities despite the dangers that posed, Dean and Cas materialized suddenly in front of Bobby’s house, both rumpled and looking tired and a bit the worse for wear, but obviously more or less unharmed.

“Uh, hi,” was all the greeting they got from Dean and the angel merely nodded.

The assembled search party just stared at the two of them for a few long seconds. Dean stared right back and Cas was looking pointedly at his shoes.

“Where the hell have you been? We’ve been looking all over for you, you fucking eejit!” bellowed Bobby.

“Been busy,” said Dean tartly, turned on his heels and simply marched into the house, up the stairs and straight under the shower.

“What the fuck was that?” asked Sam incredulously.

Castiel looked kind of shifty, Sam thought. Not meeting his eye and such. There was something going on and if Dean had been whisked off on angel business, it probably wasn’t anything good, either.  
There was something between Dean and the angel that Sam couldn’t quite put his finger on and he didn’t like it one bit.

Upstairs, Dean let the hot water wash over his body. He felt strange. There was a burning sensation travelling all through his body. Not bad burning, more warming kind of glowy, he thought. Nice, actually.  
He shook himself and heard a strange rustling noise from behind him – but when he whirled around, there was nobody there.

Dean rested his head against the cool tiles. What a morning. He didn’t know what to tell the others. It wasn’t like he was ashamed of having had sex with Castiel, it was rather that he liked having this one thing entirely to himself. He liked the thought of keeping it just between him and Cas. He had never had that kind of intimacy before, had never been close to anyone, had never even contemplated all the things he was contemplating right now. Settling down kind of things. Commitment kind of things. Things he knew full well a man like him could never ever have.

He dried himself quickly and found some almost clean clothes to wear. He braced himself and went back downstairs to face the music.

They were all talking at once, of course.  
After a few minutes of being yelled at by a great number of people, some of which had both right and reason to yell and others that didn’t, Dean slammed his hand loudly on the kitchen table.

“Enough. We have more important things to do than have futile discussions about where Cas and I were last night. We need to concentrate on winning this shit, on stopping the fucking Apocalypse. So, where are we with the Codex?”

Dean looked challengingly around the room. Nobody said anything. He roughly pulled up a chair and sat down. He looked pointedly at the team.

They sat down around the table and Sam soon enough quickly launched into a lengthy explanation on what they had discovered so far, without any further bitching about Dean’s absence. They all seemed to react to his authoritarian approach quite well, which was strange, but at the moment Dean didn’t want to dwell on that.

The ritual described in the Codex would forge them the weapon that would be able to kill Lucifer. So far, so good. They had identified all the ingredients needed for the ritual and had almost all of them at their disposal.

In point of fact, all they needed was the copper basin in which the ingredients should be assembled and a translation of the proper order for the ingredients to be placed in it during the ritual.  
Things were progressing.

  
Cas was worried.  
Dean seemed changed. He wasn’t entirely certain what exactly had changed, but there was a distinct… otherness to be noticed. His lover’s green eyes had a new kind of glow and there was a lightness about him that Cas had never before seen in the human. Some of the pain, worry and self-loathing seemed to have vanished, to be replaced by a new confidence and a distinct sense of optimism.

Now, that was not something to worry about, really. It was a great improvement, actually. But Castiel was worried, anyhow. He should have remembered to use a condom.

He had felt it happen right after his orgasm. Felt how it had started to infuse Dean’s whole being with its power and its light.  
 _His Grace_. The divine light that suffused him, that made him what he was.

A part of him relished in the thought of having given his lover a part of himself, but on the whole, Cas just didn’t know what a piece of his Grace would do to Dean in the long run. He had never heard or read of such a thing happening before and wasn’t entirely certain just _how_ it had in fact happened. It might have something to do with his rescuing Dean from Hell, with using his Grace to put Dean back together. Strange how he had not left any of it behind then, but had now.  
Still, now Dean was his. Truly, irrevocably his.

And as the Grace would also be needed for wielding the ultimate weapon, as the angel had discovered when going over a particularly veiled passage of the codex, it seemed like it was fate or maybe even divine intervention that had made Cas forget the condom.

Sam had deciphered the final passages of the Codex.  
The instructions on how to forge the weapon that could banish Lucifer to Hell again were clear and Castiel had briefly winked out to find the final piece of the puzzle.

The ingredients were all assembled on Bobby’s dining table, herbs, bones, earth and the objects the angel had found. The ritual fire was lit in a huge bronze basin that Castiel had brought with him when he had winked back into the room.  
The angel recited words in ancient Aramaic and gave one item after the other over to the flames. When the sickle had been anointed with the oil from the Burning Bush, he added it as the last piece and the flames started to burn brightly green and something indistinct was forming in their middle. It grew more and more solid in shape as Cas kept chanting and with the last words, it became a clearly formed, beautiful sword.

Castiel noticed that the inscription that had been on the handle of the saint’s sickle was now visible on the blade of the sword.

“This is the only weapon on Earth that can send the Devil back to Hell and reseal all the broken seals that kept him there,” the angel whispered reverently.

Sam held out his hand as if to take the sword.

“No! No mere mortal may touch the sword. The human who can wield this sword must have Grace and must have tasted brimstone,” Cas said firmly.

“Great – and how are we to use this sword when you need to be both human and possessing Grace to be able to touch it and not die?`”

“It’s… Dean.” There was a strange hesitation to the angel’s voice. “Dean can use it.”

“Yeah, right,” snorted Sam.

His brother was about as far removed from Grace as a human could be. Even if you ignored his stint in Hell. Okay, that would take care of the tasting brimstone bit, but apart from that? Get out of town!

“He has… some of my Grace,” the angel mumbled, blushing furiously.

“Oh, from when you rescued him from Hell?” asked Bobby, nodding as if that made perfect sense.

“N-no. Not… really.” Cas blushed again.

“If not then, when?” inquired Sam a tad belligerently.

“Uh…” said Cas eloquently.

Dean had listened to the whole conversation quietly. The Grace bit made perfect sense to him, it explained the things he had been feeling and it actually made him happy to have a piece of his angel inside of him. That it was him who had to stop the Apocalypse was old news, so it didn’t bother him at all. Castiel seemed put out. Reluctant to tell them what they had done. Did that mean his lover didn’t wish to acknowledge him? It would make sense, of course, Cas being an angel and Dean being Dean.

Castiel foundered. He had never done so, not in all the millennia before. But he just wasn’t sure if Dean would be alright with everyone knowing what they had done. He looked across the room at his lover and just barely caught the look of defeat on Dean’s face, before the familiar façade came slamming down like an iron curtain.

Castiel might not understand humans and their emotions and motivations like he should, but he was kind of an expert on the workings of Dean Winchester’s psyche. If he said nothing now, Dean would believe that he, Cas, was ashamed of consorting with someone like the Hunter. Which Cas definitely wasn’t.

“I…” He took a deep breath. “I left some of my grace behind when we made love last night.”

The stunned silence that filled Bobby’s kitchen at that announcement was thick enough you could slice it with a knife.  
He wasn’t sure if he had made the point correctly, so he added: “I forgot to use a condom. I had never made love before, I was… overwhelmed.”

He tilted his head and looked around the room. His expression was a mix of uncertainty and pride. There was a weird grin on Dean’s face, the Serenity crew didn’t so much as blink, Bobby looked to all intents and purposes like a floundered carp and Sam was white-faced and clearly had major issues with the whole ‘my brother was fucked by an angel’ thing.

  
He had almost thought the angel would not want to admit it. For one horrible moment, Dean had assumed that Cas was ashamed of stooping so low as to bed the Hunter, but then Castiel had taken a deep breath and had come right out with it. And looked proud of it, too.

Bobby and Sammy seemed not to be entirely okay with it, but that couldn’t be helped now, could it?  
It was more important now to come up with a plan to stop the goddamned Apocalypse and soon, so he said quickly: “Right. Now that’s settled. Can we please start to think about how we banish Lucifer back to Hell?”

Mal said calmly: “The tricky bit seems to me to get you and the sword close enough to Lucifer to use it. So what we need is once more a big ole distraction. Only it needs to be bigger and better than last time, because we’ve already been there and done that.”

They sat in silence for a long time after that. Everyone was concentrating on finding something, anything, that could get Dean close enough to the Devil to win the day.

Wash opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again quickly and shook his head. Zoe was quietly talking to Mal, but the captain also kept shaking his head at her whispered suggestions. This was tricky business alright and it would take a sound plan to outmaneuver Lucifer a second time.

  
  
“Sam could pretend that he wants to be Lucifer’s vessel after all,” Bobby said and immediately raised his hand to quell the protest that instantly started to pour from Dean’s mouth. “Hear me out. He’ll be too preoccupied by that to notice anything much and if you’re fast enough, we don’t have to worry about a thing.”

“That’s one helluva big motherfucking if, Bobby,” Dean said, shaking his head. “And I don’t like the idea at all.”

“I think Robert is right, Dean. Lucifer desperately needs his true vessel. I am sure by now the other vessel will be almost worn down, especially after the damage you inflicted on it already. If Sam offers himself up, Lucifer will probably not notice anything else around him.” Cas looked at Dean, trying to gauge his lover’s mood.

“Aren’t you underestimating him a bit? Yeah, okay, so maybe he’s needy and greedy and shit, but no way is he gonna believe Sam is just waltzing in there voluntarily after all that has already gone down. Whatever Lucifer may or may not be, stupid ain’t part of it.”

Dean ran his hand through his hair and over his eyes. He couldn’t believe that this whole crazy ass scheme actually even sounded half like an option to him. Fact was, though, that they were getting desperate and if they could find a way of making Sam’s change of heart believable, the plan might actually be their best bet.


	5. Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover -  5/5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.

__**Burn the land and boil the sea - MiniNano 2009 - SPN/Firefly crossover - 5/5**   
  
****  
** **

****Disclaimer:** ** ****  
** **

  
As usual, don’t I wish I’d own them… Borrowed with love and respect from Joss Whedon (JW is my master now) and the Kripteam.  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Genre:** slash  
 **Spoilers:** S5  
 **Word Count:** ~20.534  
 **Characters/Pairings:** Dean/Cas, Sam, Bobby, Mal, Wash/Zoe, Kaylee, Jayne  
 **Warnings:** language, booze, man on man action  
 **Thanks:** [](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/profile)[**jayfray18**](http://jayfray18.livejournal.com/) for teeth and zippers and some awesome beta-ing, wingfrog for the amazing artwork, [](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/profile)[**rogue_pixie88**](http://rogue-pixie88.livejournal.com/) for cheerleading and [](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/profile)[**jacen_c_solo**](http://jacen-c-solo.livejournal.com/) for not giving up on me right from the start for molesting Firefly.  
 **Summary:** The apocalypse is on. Strange phenomena pop up all over the planet. Through a wormhole in space and time, Serenity crashes in Bobby's junkyard. If its captain and crew ever wish to return to their own time, they will have to help the Winchesters end the apocalypse. So, buckle up and enjoy the ride –there may even be some Dean and Mal snarkfest, if I can get to it.  
For the sake of me being incapable of handling so many characters AND do them all justice, this is set before the Firefly series. In the SPN ‘verse, any odd time in the future of the current spot of S5 will do.  
Check <http://www.fireflywiki.org/Firefly/ChinesePhrases> and [http://web.missouri.edu/~heivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf](http://web.missouri.edu/%7Eheivilinj/Firefly/Firefly-Mandarin.pdf) for translations to the Chinese phraselets.

**  
Chapter Nine - Lord, tellin' the story, risin' in glory  
**

“He’d believe it if I’d fallen off the wagon,” Sam suddenly said in a very low voice. “He’d believe me if I went back to drinking demon blood.”

“No way.” Dean had jumped to his feet and had gone very white. “No fucking way, not while I still breathe.”

“We could fake it.” The angel looked deep into Dean’s furious, worried sick eyes. “We could find Meg and set up something. Sam wouldn’t actually have to ingest demon blood, but as long as she thinks he did, this plan might actually work.”

“How?”  
Dean’s voice sounded weary and his face was drawn. Even bringing Sammy close to demon blood did not seem like a good idea. He recalled the sight of his brother’s blood smeared face very vividly and smudging demon blood on Sam and around his mouth, especially, was just too close for comfort.

“Mal, do we still have some of that fake blood we used when we… errrm… smuggled those guns out of Antares 4?” Kaylee asked.

“Think so. Was very convincing, if I recall correctly. The Bun tyen-shung duh ee-Dway-Ro of a commissioner at least bought it in a heartbeat.”

“And how do we find this Meg?” asked Jayne. “She a demon?”

“Yes, she is indeed a demon and I can most certainly find her and take Sam there,” Castiel said. “We should, though, make sure we are well prepared and can create a convincing scenario in a very short time.”

“Just for the record: I don’t like this one bit.” Dean sighed. Nope, not one bit.

“Duly noted, Dean,” Cas nodded.

  
Dean sat back while the others plotted.  
He was tired, but pleasantly so. What he really would have liked to do was drag his angel back to bed and the Apocalypse be damned. He watched Castiel discuss the details of their plan with Bobby, Sam and Mal and felt a stab of pride. Cas was his.

That handsome fucker in the trench who could smite evil belonged to Dean Winchester. Of that he was certain – the angel would be constant in his affections, would not fuck around, would not leave him, either, unless…  
Unless he had to leave when they did manage to stop the Apocalypse.

A cold wave of fear flooded Dean’s whole body. It was possible that the Heavenly Host would reinstate Castiel to his former status afterwards. It was possible they would give him a new task, then. It was possible he would lose the angel.  
It was possible all he would ever have was the memory of last night.

  
Or Castiel might Fall.  
They could strip him of his Grace, rip the wings from his body and toss him down to live out the rest of his days on Earth as a human. If they sent him down to inhabit the body of a newly born baby, he would be lost to Dean forever. By the time baby Cas would be all grown up, Dean would be an old man.

Even if they _would_ let him keep Jimmy Novak’s body, Cas would still be broken and it would never heal, never be alright.  
How could Dean let that happen to the person he loved?  
Loved.  
He started shaking when the realization hit him.  
He loved the angel.  
Oh God.

And no matter what would happen, it would never be the same between them. He should never have touched the angel. He should have known his touch was destructive, would taint what had been pure, would ruin everything in the end.

  
Everything was in place and all they were waiting for was the angelic intel on Meg’s whereabouts. Castiel had been gone for a long time. A pale and drawn looking Dean was pacing and it was driving everybody nuts.  
Finally, the angel returned. He nodded at Dean, the tiniest of smiles playing on his lips.

“She is in Bigelow, Missouri.”

“Okay, let’s go then,” said Sam eagerly.

“We need an adjustment in our plan. There are only 26 houses in Bigelow. We had catered for a larger settlement, where a chance meeting could be more easily arranged,” Cas said, voice gravelly and eyes worried.

“What is she doing there?” Wash asked.

“She was torturing the pastor,” replied Castiel.

“Okay, new plan: We barge in for the rescue. Totally believable scenario. Mal, Zoe and I fight. The rest of you prepare the scene we want Meg to see,” Dean said. His voice and expression didn’t encourage any back talking.

The angel nodded briefly, roughly outlined the layout of the house and they all got ready.  
Castiel whisked them to the front porch of the pastor’s house. With a quick glance to make sure everybody was ready, Dean broke the door down.

  
“Boys, how do you do it? You always manage to show up at the most awkward of times. Quite a knack, really. Quite annoying, too.”

Meg had turned around as the door came crashing down and was glaring at them, eyes completely black. There were four other demons in the room, all busy torturing the pastor.

“We aim to please,” said Dean, spreading his arms wide and grinning ear to ear.

Malcolm Reynolds was grinning, too and said: “Actually, I usually aim to misbehave, sweetheart.”

“Now, just step back from the pastor like a good little hell bitch and nobody has to get hurt,” said Dean, patently false grin still beaming.

Meg motioned to her companions. They advanced on the group and Sam immediately singled out one of the demons and attacked. He drove the demon from the living room through the hall into the kitchen, with Wash and Jayne directly behind them. Castiel was waiting for them there and pinned the demon from behind. Sam drove the Knife Formerly Known as Ruby’s into the demon’s chest and watched the vile thing die.

Wash quickly unpacked the fake blood and began to dab Sam’s face with liberal amounts of it. Sam hunkered down and cut open the vein in the demon vessel’s arm. He held the arm halfway to his mouth. It took all his willpower to keep it there, he found. He might be on the wagon, but he wasn’t out of the mess just yet.

Castiel nodded at them and vanished, Jayne andWash ran back into the living room. Dean was fighting Ruby, Mal and Zoe were busy with the three other demons. Jayne immediately tackled the third demon.  
Dean began to drive Meg in the direction of the kitchen and then Cas materialized beside him, as planned and advanced on Meg. The demon turned and ran.

“Look who’s being a bad boy again,” she purred as she came face to face with Sam in the kitchen, still clutching the demon’s arm . “Naughty!”

Then she dove through the kitchen window and vanished in the night.

They returned to Bobby’s house immediately. Foreplay was over, now for the main event.

“Okay, where next? Where is Lucifer hiding?” asked Mal.

“He won’t be hiding any longer once Meg gives him the news on Sam,” said Castiel quietly. “All we have to do is wait.”

Turned out they didn’t have to wait long.

Lucifer was cutting a bloody swath through a small town in California right there on nationwide news. Just like last time, there were corpses galore and the entire town was bathed in blood, gore and entrails. This time, however, Lucifer didn’t speak, he merely looked into the camera and smiled wickedly. Sam shuddered. He knew full well that the smile was intended for him. And recalling how the sight of the sliced vein and all that blood had made him feel didn’t make things any easier.

Dean walked past him and surprised Sam by briefly squeezing his shoulder. Strangely enough, Sam felt better immediately. Dean was not normally given to displays of affection or encouragement like that, so Sam wondered if that was a good or a bad sign.

Dean walked out into the yard. It looked like the hour was finally drawing near. The decisive moment, where he could make everything right. Or fail again, only worse than ever.  
He ran his hand through his hair and then across his chin. He could not fail this time.

“You won’t,” a deep voice whispered softly into his ear. He didn’t even jump. Apparently, he was finally getting used to Cas’ sudden appareances.

“Cas… I… don’t know if we’ll pull through this one. And if we don’t, I… I thought you should know…”

Dean’s voiced trailed off helplessly.  
He just wasn’t the type for big declarations. He simply couldn’t find the right words.  
Cas looked at him for a long time, his head once more tilted like he always did when something puzzled him. Finally, he pulled Dean towards him and simply covered the human’s lips with his.  
Words were so overrated, Dean thought as he ran his hands through his angel’s hair.

In spite of the need for secrecy, they had decided to take Serenity toCalifornia. It would simply be faster and more efficient. The Impala was loaded into the cargo bay and Bobby, Sam and Dean went on board. Castiel was already waiting for them.

“You’re not mojoin’ over?” said Bobby.

“And miss a ride on a spacecraft?” Cas said very seriously, before breaking out into a huge grin.

Dean laughed out loud. “Now don’t tell me you’re been dreaming of this since you were a little baby angel, Cas!”

Sam muttered something unintelligible and went aft very quickly. The last thing he needed was to watch his brother flirt with the fucking angel. The fucking angel who had literally fucked him.  
That was so not right in so many ways that Sam didn’t even have words for it, conveniently forgetting his own fling with the demon who had been Lucifer’s number one henchman. Henchperson. Henchdemon?  
But this was not about Sam, this was about Dean doing something unspeakable. How the hell could he?

They landed on the outskirts of town.  
Sam went ahead alone, while the others stealthily followed. Their luck held, nobody spotted them – mostly because the demons were all so hell-bent on catching a glimpse of Lucifer’s true vessel.

Finally, Sam reached the town square, where the Devil was waiting for him.  
Dean broke away from the group to creep carefully around the square and behind Lucifer.  
Sam was facing Lucifer, praying fervently that the Devil wouldn’t notice just how nervous he was.

“So, you have _finally_ come to me,” Lucifer said with a warm, welcoming smile, arms spread wide as though he wanted to hug Sam. “You finally accepted who and what you are. I am proud of you.”

“Well, yeah, I guess…” Sam stared helplessly at a spot behind Lucifer’s shoulder. What was he supposed to do now?

Mal saw the young man flounder and gave the signal. The group ran to Sam’s aid.

“You won’t have him, you bastard!” snarled Mal as he skidded to a halt between Sam and Lucifer.

  
“Of course I will have him. It is his destiny!” the Devil declared grandly and continued much in this vein about how the new world was about to begin and how everything would soon be very shiny, yadda yadda.

Lucifer continued: “And I will sit on my throne and finally, finally after all those millennia my Father will have to welcome me back. And welcome me back as an equal. Just like it’s supposed to be. I will get my dues!”

After listening to this crap and much more besides for a while, Mal got so fed up with Lucifer’s blathering that he simply stepped up to him, snarled a Chinese insult and without further ado head butted the Devil.  
Nobody had seen it coming, especially not Lucifer himself. A direct physical attack - and such a primitive one at that - was just not something the Fallen Angel had reckoned with.

Lucifer staggered backwards a little and that was Dean’s chance. He raised the sword and ran it clean through the Devil’s midriff.

The fallen angel screamed in agony, there was a blinding flash of light and then the world went dark. Pitch black, in fact. Dean couldn’t see a thing. He pulled the sword from the body and felt the vessel’s corpse crumple to the floor.  
Suddenly, the floor started to buck and heave as if it were alive.

“Everyone, hold on to something,” Dean could hear Mal scream.

He still couldn’t see a thing, but Dean somehow didn’t think it would be a good idea to fall into any pits that might have opened in the dark. Even if they weren’t literally bottomless, he sure as hell knew where the bottom would be and no way was he going back there now of all times.

“Could do with some fuckin’ light, goddammit!” he snarled to no one in particular and immediately, the sword started to glow white, illuminating the whole square.

Okay, so that was what the inscription meant.  
The ground continued to shake and bounce like a bucking stallion and the spot Dean was standing on rose into the air, then began to tilt. Dean drove the sword into the earth at his feet and held on for dear life.

The motion stopped. Second part of the inscription, spot on too, thought Dean. The light and the rock.

He could see the others, still standing on a larger piece of what appeared to be more solid ground. Sam was on the floor a few feet away from Dean.

**  
Chapter Ten – All’s well that ends well  
**

Castiel walked into the square with slow, measured steps. Dean had done it. He had banished Lucifer right back to Hell.  
The angel frowned. He should be happy, but the end of the Apocalypse also meant the end of his stint as a renegade angel, for better or for worse.  
And sure enough, he came face to face with Zachariah.

“Ah, Castiel, such a joyous occasion to meet again, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Indeed.”

Castiel was not going to give the other angel the satisfaction of rejoicing in his presence. He didn’t want to talk to the pompous prick at all, if truth be told, but at least while he did, Zachariah would leave Dean alone.

“I think you know that we must talk about your future now, Castiel. You can’t have been thinking we would let this continue, right? You will return back to the garrison with me and you will resume your former post.”

“Will I be permitted to return here?”

“Here? To California? Well, of course, if your new task calls for it!”

“That is not what I meant and you know that.”

“Goodness me, Castiel, really. Of course you will not be permitted to continue fornicating with the monkey. Be glad you will retain your wings after what you did!”

Dean marched up to Zachariah with fierce determination and held the sword against the angel’s throat, determined to make things alright for Cas.

“Cas stays here. With me. And you won’t do a thing to him.”

“You would not kill an angel, surely, Dean Winchester.”

“Normally not, but for you, I’d gladly make an exception, asshole.”

“Admirable as your determination is, are you really so sure that this is what Castiel wants? You are cutting him off from his family, his life, you know. Standing in the way of his career, too,” Zachariah said jovially, trying to pretend he wasn’t scared shitless but still trying to hit Dean where it hurt.

“He belongs with me. He knows it. I know it. You know it. End of discussion,” Dean snarled with a lot more conviction than he actually felt.

Was he really doing the right thing here? Did Cas really want to stay with him, rather than return to Heaven?  
Dean felt sick. Oh, God, what the fuck was he doing here? No way should he keep Cas down here, the angel belonged in Heaven and…

At that moment, he felt Cas’ hand on the small of his back and the angel said: “Damn right I belong the fuck here with Dean."

Dean swallowed convulsively past the lump in his throat. Wouldn’t do to cry when Zach was watching. So he growled: “You heard him. Now get lost.”

Zachariah looked like he wanted to keep arguing, but Dean pushed the sword against his throat a bit harder and the angel just vanished.

Dean dropped the sword. He had never felt so exhausted, relieved, happy and confused in all his life. He turned to Cas and saw the exact same emotions play on his angel’s face.  
Dean and Cas clung to each other like drowning men. At long last, Dean eased up on the embrace enough to gain the space needed to fervently start kissing Cas.

“Epic!” Wash whispered to Zoe.

Sam made retching noises and had just started to say something when Jayne hit him square in the face with brute force.

“You leave ‘em alone. Love is a beautiful thing, you stupid fuck,” snarled the man. His eyes were a little reddened, but that might just be a trick of the light. “Prejudiced little prick,” he spat out.

Sam wiped the blood from his nose and looked around.

Bobby was there, shaking his head at him. “Boy, if you as much as look sideways at those two, you’ll get hit twice as hard by me,” the older man growled, then added in a whisper, “Just you be the fuck glad your brother’s happy. Don’t you think he deserves to be, you eejit?”

They sat down on a few logs near Serenity. Jayne hauled a crate of beer from the cargo hull. The Impala was carefully unloaded and parked nearby.

Dean didn’t like the thought that soon the ship would be launched into the blue skies overhead and would vanish through a wormhole courtesy of Angel Airlines. He liked these people and he hated to lose them for good. No chance to ever see them again.

Bobby had dug up his old camera again. Dean hadn’t thought he’d ever touch it again, not after Jo and Ellen, but here he was, Robert Singer Esq., merrily snapping away, wheeling here and there and looking so much better than he had in months.

Cas sat down beside him and slipped his arm around Dean’s waist. Jayne handed them a bottle each and everyone toasted everyone else.

“You know, it’s strange how easily the Devil was vanquished in the end,” said Dean quietly.

“With the right weapon and tactics, everything else is easy,” said Zoe and added: “And the right crew, of course.”

Dean smiled and nodded. No, they certainly couldn’t have done this without the Serenity crew.

Malcolm Reynolds was wiping the beaded moisture from his bottle with his thumb and said in a quiet voice: “You know, when we went hurtling towards that wormhole, I expected a great many things, including our instant painful demise, but I sure as hell didn’t expect this.”

He looked at his newfound and soon to be lost friends gravely and continued: “I’d like to propose a toast.  
 _Take my love, take my land_  
 _Take me where I cannot stand_  
 _I don't care, I'm still free_  
 _You can't take the sky from me_  
 _Take me out to the black_  
 _Tell them I ain't comin' back_  
 _Burn the land and boil the sea_  
 _You can't take the sky from me_  
 _There's no place I can be_  
 _Since I found Serenity_  
 _But you can't take the sky from me.  
_ To friendship, found in the strangest places. To good vanquishing evil. And to us.”

They all echoed “to us” and drank.

Dean was sure this was a moment that would stay with him for the rest of his life, in all its bittersweet glory. They had won the day, but they would soon part with the very people without whom they couldn’t have done it.  
They finished their beers in silence.

Cas stood up and said quietly: “It’s time, captain.”

Mal nodded and motioned to his crew to get up. The moment was here. They solemnly shook hands and one by one, the Serenity crew filed inside the spacecraft.Wash turned at the top of the ramp, grinned and waved wildly at them. Sam, Dean and Bobby waved back.  
Mal walked over to Dean and held out his hand.

“Try to keep yourself and that angel of yours safe, Dean, okay?”

Dean nodded and shook the captain’s hand. Another of those moments when he wished he were a bit better at expressing himself on matters like these. But then he suddenly remembered how Cas had simply kissed him and everything had been clear and he just grabbed Mal and wordlessly hugged the other man hard.

Mal strode purposefully up the ramp, eager to get home while he was regretting leaving these people at the same time. Cas nodded at Dean and walked after Mal.  
The hatch closed and the huge engines of the spaceship were starting up. Serenity rose, turned and then took to the sky. Soon it was merely a tiny speck in a sea of blue, then it was gone completely.  
For good.

Dean sighed and Bobby said: “Ready to get goin’, boys?”

“Yup, as ready as I ever will be,” said Dean.

He picked up the duffel with the weapons and was about to march towards the Impala, when Sam stopped him. Bobby looked sharply at Sam.

“I.. uh, I need a moment with Dean, Bobby. That okay?” Sam muttered.

“Sure, I’ll be needing more time to get into the damned car, anyways,” said Bobby and wheeled off towards the Impala.

“Dean… about you and… uh… Cas… I… uh… I behaved like an asshole. Sorry, really.”

Dean merely nodded, slapped Sam on the shoulder and said: “C’mon Sammy, it’s gonna be a long drive to Bobby’s.”

  
Serenity was roaring through open space.

“How long until the wormhole?” Wash asked, anxiously checking the flight controls for signs of anything untoward.

“Ready when you are, Hoban,” Castiel said calmly.

“Oh no, man, you do NOT call me that. You call meWash, you hear? Nobody calls me Hoban and lives, man!” the blond man snarked.

Castiel tilted his head and said: “But it is your name, is it not? Hoban Washburne?”

“Give the angel a break, Wash,” Mal interjected with a chuckle. “His ways are not our ways, you know.”

Cas smiled at Mal and said: “I will miss you all. So will Dean, very much. I bid you goodbye and wish you Godspeed. Zhu Yi.”

With a wave of his hand, a big wormhole appeared in front of the ship. This time, however, the ride was smooth and there was no bucking nor heaving. When Mal turned to thank the angel and say goodbye, Castiel was already gone.  
They whooshed through the wormhole.  
The navigation computer switched on suddenly.

“We’re orbiting near Ezra, we’re the fuck back home,” yelled Wash.

“Shiny, just shiny.”

Dean was sitting on the hood of the Impala and looked up into space.  
He contemplated the past and imagined the future and somehow, it seemed like things were falling into place and life seemed like a fairly good deal these days.

And while the baby wings he had found he could unfurl weirded him out a bit, he was sure he would get used to them eventually.  
They looked kind of hot, though.  
Yeah, they definitely might have potential.

Cas was there suddenly, as usual, a warm presence against Dean’s shoulder.

“I never thought I would survive this, Cas. Not really, in spite of all the fucking bravado and Dutch courage and shit.”

“I know. I, however, was always certain you could do it and find a way to still be there after. I always believed in you.”

“I don’t know why, Cas. I don’t get the faith you have in me, I never have and never will.”

“Well, as long as you believe that my faith will not falter, nor will my love, we’re… what’s the expression… five by five.”

Dean smiled and leaned against his angel.  
This might just work.

~ Finis ~


End file.
